LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA.     \ 


Class 


I 


WITH  AN  APPENDIX 


CONTAINING  A    LIST  OP  FIVE   HUN- 
DRED  BEST   BOOKS 


BY 


CHARLES  WILLIAM  SUPER,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

EX-PRESIDENT  OP  THE   OHIO   UNIVERSITY  AND  PROFESSOR  OF   GREEK  IBIDEM 

TRANSLATOR    OF    WEIL'S   ORDER    OF    WORD,     SATJTHOR  OF  A    HISTORY 

OF     THE     GERMAN    LANGUAGE,    BETWEEN     HEATHENISM     AND 

CHRISTIANITY,    WISDOM     AND     WILL     IN     EDUCATION, 

AND  NUMEROUS  MONOGRAPHS  ON  EDUCATIONAL, 

PHILOSOPHICAL      AND      HISTORICAL 

SUBJECTS 


1907 
C.  W.  BARDEEN,   PUBLISHER 

SYRACUSE,   N.  Y. 


To  THE  YOUNG  PEOPLE 

who  graduated   from  the   Ohio   University  in  the 

years  1884,  '85,  '86,  '87,  '88,  '89,  '90,  '91, 

'92,     '93,     '94,     '95,     '96,     '99,     1900, 

'01,    this    booklet    is     inscribed 

reminiscently,  exhortatively, 

affectionately,  by  the 

AUTHOR. 


"A  little  learning  is  a  dang'rous  thing; 
Drink  deep  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  spring; 
There  shallow  draughts  intoxicate  the  brain, 
And  drinking  largely  sobers  us  again." — Pope. 

"  If  any  man  shall  convince  me  and  show  me 
that  I  do  not  think  or  act  aright,  I  will  gladly 
change ;  for  I  seek  the  truth  from  which  no  one 
ever  suffered  injury.  But  he  is  injured  who  abides 
in  his  error  and  ignorance." — Marcus  Aurelius  An- 
toninus. 


A  LIBERAL  EDUCATION 


It  is  the  fashion  with  the  heads  of  our  colleges 
and  universities  to  seek  to  attract  students  by  set- 
ting forth  the  pecuniary  advantages  to  be  gained 
by  what  is  called  a  liberal  education.  They 
maintain  that  four  or  more  years  spent  in  acquiring 
the  best  systematic  education  possible  are  not  only 
no  loss  from  a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  but 
a  positive  gain  rather,  since  the  rapidity  of  subse- 
quent advancement  will  more  than  make  up  for  the 
apparent  waste  of  time. 

Thoroughly  convinced  as  I  am  of  the  advantages 
of  a  liberal  education,  no  matter  how  or  where 
obtained,  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  the  position 
above  referred  to  can  not  be  sustained.  I  am  con- 
fident if  a  young  man's  highest  ambition  is  to  get 
rich,  he  does  not  need  even  the  systematic  educa- 
tion to  be  got  by  passing  through  a  good  High 
School. 

The  error  arises  from  a  failure  to  distinguish  be- 
tween information  and  education  or  enlightenment; 
between  knowledge  and  culture;  between  alertness 
of  mind  or  keenness  of  intellect  and  breadth  of 
understanding.  One  can  not  acquire  an  education 


10  A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

without  a  knowledge  of  books;  but  the  knowledge 
of  what  man  has  done  and  thought,  in  a  large  way 
and  on  great  problems,  is  of  little  use  to  him  who 
is  concerned  only  how  to  use  the  passing  oppoi  - 
tunity  to  serve  himself. 

In  order  to  gain  wealth  one  needs  to  know  what 
is  going  on  in  that  particular  domain  of  the  business 
world  in  which  his  pecuniary  interests  are  supposed 
to  lie,  and  very  little  else.  One  needs  only  to  know 
how  to  take  advantage  of  opportunities  for  profit 
as  they  arise;  nothing  further.  Some  of  our  wealth- 
iest men  have  not  knowledge  enough  to  use  their 
mother-tongue  correctly,  yet  their  wealth  gives  ^them 
a  temporary  influence  and  a  certain  though  passing 
importance.  Were  it  not  for  their  wealth  they 
would  be  nobodies.  In  such  cases  money  is  the 
man's  master  and  the  first  consideration  when  his 
name  is  mentioned.  Money  makes  the  man,  gives 
him  a  kind  of  dignity,  secures  for  him  a  measure  of 
outward  respect,  but  it  can  not  give  him  worth. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  primary  object  of  a  liberal 
education  is  to  impart  to  a  man  a  value  aside,  from 
any  tangible  possessions  he  may  have  succeed  ed^in 
getting  into  his  hands  and  his  coffers. 


II 


An  interview  with  the  late  Senator  Hoar  has 
been  widely  circulated  in  which  he  is  reported  to 
have  said  that  his  annual  income  outside  of  his  sal- 
ary never  exceeded  two  thousand  dollars.  Yet  his 
character  stood  so  high,  and  so  implicit  was  the 
confidence  his  constituents  placed  in  his  ability  and 
integrity,  that  for  almost  thirty  years  he  was  a  rep- 
resentative in  Congress  of  the  most  enlightened  com- 
monwealth in  the  Union.  When  first  sent  to  Wash- 
ington it  was  through  no  effort  of  his  own,and  his  sub- 
sequent re-elections  came  to  him  unsought.  During 
his  entire  career  he  was  more  or  less  identified  with 
almost  every  important  measure  that  came  before 
the  body  of  which  he  was  a  member.  While  others 
with  far  less  ability  used  their  opportnnities  for  ac- 
quiring wealth  he  sought  only  to  cultivate  his  own 
mind  and  to  serve  his  country  most  efficiently. 
That  young  man  who  would  not  rather  be  the 
counterpart  of  the  late  George  Frisbie  Hoar  than  any 
one  or  any  ten  of  the  intellectual  nobodies  who  have 
bought  their  way  to  political  honors,  is  sadly  in  need 
of  a  change  of  heart. 

The  State  of  New  York  never  gave  birth  to  a  more 
distinguished  citizen  than  De  Witt  Clinton,  nor  to 

11 


12  A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

one  more  disinterested.  "He  was  a  great  statesman 
in  his  time,  not  for  money  (as  they  are  now)  but  for 
the  people's  good.  Millions  had  been  within  his 
grasp  while  Governor,  yet  the  day  after  his  remains 
had  been  consigned  to  the  tomb  a  set  of  silver-ware 
presented  to  him  by  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of 
New  York  as  a  token  of  esteem,  had  to  be  sold  to 
liquidate  a  debt  of  eight  hundred  dollars."  While 
Mr.  Clinton  may  have  been  rather  inexcusably  in- 
different to  his  private  interests,  his  poverty  is  far 
more  to  his  credit  than  if  he  had  erred  on  the  other 
side  and  looked  out  for  himself  first. 

I  do  not  belong  to  the  class  who  condemn  riches 
unconditionally;  wrho  are/eady  to  declare  that  every 
rich  man  is  a  rogue  or  a  hard-hearted  brute.  I  can 
not  deny  that  our  country  and  every  country  owes 
much  to  its  rich  men  and  that  riches  are  often  hon- 
estly gained.  But  this  is  the  result  of  shrewdness 
and  intellectual  acumen  or  good  luck  and  not  of 
education.  If  a  wealthy  man  is  liberally  educated 
and  enlightened  it  is  a  matter  of  great  good  fortune 
to  himself  and  a  blessing  to  the  community  of  which 
he  forms  a  part;  but  the  two  things  have  no  neces- 
sary connection  with  each  other. 


III. 

It  is  a  common  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  liberal 
education  can  be  acquired  at  any  institution  of 
learning  however  well  equipped  it  may  be  with  the 
means  and  appliances  of  instruction.  The  best 
schools,  the  most  eminent  teachers,  are  but  guide- 
posts,  or  means  to  an  end.  They  can  show  us  how 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  knowledge  and  where  to 
find  the  elements  of  culture;  there  their  power  ends. 
The  most  valuable  acquisitions,  indeed  the  only 
acquisitions  that  possess  any  genuine  worth,  are 
those  we  make  for  ourselves. 

Let  us  remember  that  the  great  men  and  the 
great  women  of  the  world  have  learned  only  the 
rudiments  from  others  and  that  with  these  their 
education  by  living  teachers  ended.  A  young  per- 
son can  lay  the  foundations  of  knowledge  at  high 
school,  college  or  university, — can  lay  them  broad 
and  deep  and  firm;  but  the  superstructure  must  be 
erected  in  after  life. 

The  best  education  obtained  at  the  best  school  is, 
speaking  by  and  large,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
of  an  artificial  character.  In  the  realm  of  mind  it 
deals  with  what  is  more  or  less  remote;  in  the  realm 
of  matter,  with  forces  and  conditions  in  miniature. 

13 


14  A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

In  actual  life  the  individual  has  constantly  to  face 
conditions  that  did  not  exist  quite  in  the  same  re- 
lation before  and  has  to  adapt  himself  to  them  or 
make  them  subservient  to  him. 

No  man  was  ever  made  a  great  teacher  by  any- 
body else.  It  is  in  the  right  use  of  conditions  that 
the  successful  man  differs  from  those  who  are  to  be 
classed  with  the  failures.  Neither  was  any  one  ever 
made  a  great  commander  by  a  military  school;  yet 
military  schools  have  proved  their  usefulness  to 
such  an  extent  that  all  civilized  countries  have 
them.  As  long  as  nations  shall  continue  to  adjust 
their  disputes  by  a  resort  to  force  instead  of  by  an 
appeal  to  reason,  institutions  that  teach  the  art  and 
science  of  killing  men  and  rendering  human  labor 
useless  will  continue  to  find  favor  with  governments. 

There  is  always  danger  that  formal  education, 
that  all  education  conducted  according  to  a  pre- 
conceived plan,  will  become  stereotyped.  It  is 
natural  for  men  to  suppose  when  they  have  for  a 
long  time  done  certain  things  in  a  certain  way  that 
their  way  is  the  best;  it  is  without  question  the 
easiest.  They  are  more  concerned  about  regularity 
than  results.  When  the  young  Napoleon  first  ap- 
peared on  the  field  of  war  he  was  generally  opposed 
by  men  who  fought  battles  and  expected  to  win 
them  as  they  had  been  accustomed  to  doing.  Not 
so  he;  what  he  aimed  at  was  victories;  to  gain  these 
he  threw  all  the  rules  of  war  to  the  winds.  What 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  15 

he  had  learned  at  Brienne  and  Paris  stood  him  in 
good  stead,  but  the  conditions  of  actual  warfare 
taught  him  new  lessons  every  day:  that  he  knew 
how  to  use  these  lessons  to  his  own  advantage  was 
what  distinguished  him  from  all  the  commanders 
of  his  time. 

On  the  other  hand,  one  of  his  successful  oppo- 
nents, Bluecher,  was  a  man  almost  wholly  without 
education.  If  we  were  to  take  his  case  as  typical 
and  as  a  rule  to  follow,  not  only  are  military  schools 
but  all  other  schools  of  little  use.  The  same 
statement  may  be  applied  to  many  successful  men 
in  every  walk  of  life. 


IV. 


The  right  kind  of  an  education  must  fit  a  man 
for  the  comprehension  and  interpretation  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  outer  as  well  as  of  the  inner 
world.  Introspection  is  often  no  more  than  a  brood- 
ing over  our  own  mental  states  and  may  easily  be- 
come morbid.  The  study  of  our  own  mind  is 
fruitful  only  when  it  is  made  the  basis  of  compari- 
son with  other  minds.  Emerson  says  that  a  life  of 
solitude  is  fit  only  for  a  god  or  a  beast. 
*±  We  need  above  all  things  to  have  our  intellectual 
pewers  trained  to  the  observation  of  the  relation  of 
cause  to  effect,  whether  it  be  in  the  study  of  the  past 
or  of  the  present.  Nothing  else  will  have  so  help- 
ful and  healthful  an  influence  upon  our  conduct. 
The  daily  acts  of  our  lives,  unless  we  have  degene- 
rated into  mere  creatures  of  routine  or  have  never 
risen  above  it,  are  hardly  more  than  the  perpetual 
adjustment  of  means  to  ends,  a  continual  calcula- 
tion of  probabilities.  If  we  have  provided  ourselves 
with  such  a  fund  of  human  experince  as  will  enable 
us  to  choose  that  course  which  is  beset  with  the 
fewest  chances  of  failure  we  have  done  all  that  it  is 
possible  for  our  limited  powers  to  accomplish. 
While  it  contributes  much  to  intellectual  enlight- 

16 


A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION  17 

ment  to  travel,  to  know  other  men  end  other  man- 
ners, other  climes  and  other  conditions,  this  insight 
can  be  gained  only  by  those  who  have  been  trained 
to  observe,  to  compare,  to  reflect,  and  to  interpret. 
As  Seneca  said  long  ago,  whithersoever  we  travel, 
we  take  ourselves  along;  we  can  not  help  making  our- 
selves a  sort  of  measuring  line  which  we  apply  to 
all  that  we  see  and  hear.  If  then  we  do  not  know 
how  to  use  it,  or  if  it  is  incorrect,  our  estimate  is 
always  erroneous. 

In  this  respect  modern  education  differs  from  all 
that  has  preceded  it.  It  lays  much  stress  on  the 
careful  abservation  and  accurate  determination  of 
external  phenomena.  Apart  from  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  choice  spirits,  the  ancient  Greeks 
did  not  greatly  concern  themselves  with  anything 
but  man,  and  only  man  of  the  highest  type.  After 
they  became  self-conscious  and  began  to  view  man 
apart  from  eternal  nature  and  to  separate  the  in- 
dividual from  the  mass,  they  were  filled  with  won- 
der at  all  the  phenomena  that  came  under  their 
eyes.  For  more  than  a  century  the  results  of  their 
observations  kept  accumulating.  This  was  the 
golden  age  of  the  Hellenes. 

Then,  as  they  fell  more  and  more  under  foreign 
domination  the  keenness  of  the  Greek  intellect  be- 
gan to  grow  dull.  The  Alexandrian  age  was  still 
in  a  large  measure  Hellenic,  but  as  time  passed  it 
became  more  and  more  mixed  with  foreign  elements. 


18  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

For  a  while  knowledge  was  increased  though  in- 
tellectual power  was  on  the  wane.  As  men  came 
to  know  more  they  reflected  less  and  pondered  less 
deeply.  They  still  preserved  an  interest  in  the 
plastic  arts,  but  they  no  longer  had  a  keen  appre- 
ciation of  the  genuinely  artistic. 

In  the  oration  which  Dio  Chrysostum  delivered 
before  the  Rhodians  he  reproaches  his  hearers  for 
the  vicious  custom  of  changing  the  inscriptions  on 
old  statues  in  order  to  honor  or  flatter  contempora- 
ries. Those  who  wrote  or  spoke  did  not  concern 
themselves  to  tell  anything  new;  they  merely 
endeavored  to  treat  old  and  well  worn  topics  in  a 
new  way.  He  who  could  use  the  largest  number  of 
words  in  discussing  the  most  trifling  theme  was 
most  admired.  The  Greeks  were  still  as  curious  as 
ever;  but  theirs  was  the  curiosity  of  children,  not 
the  spirit  of  inquiry  that  animates  and  inspires  the 
scientific  investigator.  Many  new  books  were 
written,  but  they  were  in  a  great  measure  compila- 
tions from  older  ones.  Hence  it  is  not  without 
justification  that  most  histories  of  Greece  and  Greek 
literature  end  with  the  career  of  Alexander. 


VI. 


With  the  rise  and  spread  of  Christianity  men 
more  and  more  lost  interest  in  external  nature  and 
in  what  we  may  call  the  natural  man.  Political 
conditions  for  the  common  people  kept  going  from 
bad  to  worse.  All  their  efforts  were  needed  to  gain 
a  bare  livelihood;  they  had  no  time  left  to  think  of 
intellectual  culture  or  to  seek  it.  God  only  could 
help  the  common  man;  God  alone  could  free  him 
from  his  own  sinful  self  and  save  him  after  he  had 
quitted  this  sorrowful  world. 

Since  there  was  little  hope  of  making  the  world 
better,  the  devout  could  attain  perfection  only  by 
having  as  little  to  do  with  it  as  possible,  or  what 
was  still  better,  by  retiring  from  it  entirely.  The 
spirit  of  asceticism  drove  many  of  the  most  capable 
men  into  solitude.  Thus  for  nearly  a  thousand 
years  everything  that  bore  the  semblance  of  educa- 
tion was  more  or  less  pervaded  with  the  spirit  of 
devotion,  with  exhortation  to  heart-searching,  to 
meditation  and  prayer. 

Until  within  comparatively  recent  times  and  in 
every  country  of  Europe  the  most  widely  read  books 
were  devotional  manuals.  These  books  were  conned 
by  millions  who  read  nothing  else.  It  may  seem 

19 


20  A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

strange  that  the  doctrines  and  teachings  of  the  first 
Christian  writers  could  be  so  perverted  and  mis- 
understood; but  the  fact  shows  to  what  an  extent 
objective  conditions  determine  subjective  mental 
states. 

The  modern  tendency  in  education  is  therefore  a 
healthful  tendency  in  so  far  as  it  teaches  the  young 
to  look  about  themselves  as  well  as  within;  to  look 
forward  as  well  as  to  look  back.  It  teaches  them 
the  power  of  man  over  external  nature;  that  human 
welfare  is  to  a  great  extent  conditioned  upon  the 
use  he  makes  of  this  power.  It  teaches  them  not 
to  run  away  from  evil  but  face  it  boldly,  to  fight  it 
and  destroy  it. 

The  chief  danger  is  that  this  tendency  may  be 
allowed  to  carry  us  too  far  and  we  come  to  believe 
after  a  while  that  the  highest  aim  in  life  is  to  ac- 
quire the  largest  quantity  of  earthly  possessions. 
The  immense  aggregate  of  human  experience  that 
a  young  man,  even  during  his  minority,  can  absorb 
from  books  ought  not  only  to  make  him  better  in- 
formed but  also  better  able  to  regulate  his  conduct 
in  harmony  with  the  moral  order  of  the  world. 
Yea,  it  ought  to  do  more:  it  ought  to  fill  him  with 
the  determination  to  sacrifice  everything  rather  than 
do  violence  to  this  order. 


VII. 

It  is  well  to  keep  in  mind  that  knowledge  pure 
and  simple  is  generally  useful,  or  may  at  least  in 
almost  all  cases  be  turned  to  advantage.  There 
is  an  education  that  can  not  be  called  liberal  but 
which  is  nevertheless  in  the  highest  sense  profitable. 
Darwin  had  not  the  slightest  interest  in  works  of 
the  imagination,  yet  he  did  more  to  stimulate 
thought  than  any  other  man  of  his  day.  The  pro- 
jectors of  the  great  engineering  works  which  fill  the 
beholder  with  awe  as  much  as  the  wonders  of  na- 
ture, may  have  absolutely  no  taste  for  anything 
that  does  not  directly  concern  their  business;  yet 
they  and  their  class  have  contributed  and  will  con- 
tinue to  contribute  to  the  happiness  and  welfare  of 
men. 

We  do  not  wisely  when  we  depreciate  one  man 
because  he  is  not  another  or  censure  him  for  not 
doing  one  thing  when  he  feels  that  he  can  do  some- 
thing else  better.  Most  men  are  good  for  some- 
thing, and  blessed  is  the  man  who  has  found  his 
vocation.  I  may  quote  here  with  approval  a  homely 
illustration  of  this  truth  that  I  once  heard.  "I  do 
not  find  fault  with  one  thing  because  it  is  not  another. 
I  do  not  blame  a  cow  for  not  laying  eggs  or  a  hen 
for  not  giving  milk.  Everything  in  nature  has  its 
use,  but  we  should  take  heed  that  it  is  not  abused." 

31 


VIII. 

The  biographical  data  brought  together  in  " Who's 
Who  in  America"  have  frequently  been  cited  to  prove 
that  a  collegiate  education  is  an  important  aid  to 
success  in  life.  The  book  contains  a  brief  sketch  of 
about  fourteen  thousand  five  hundred  persons.  Of 
this  number  seventy  per  cent  have  had  the  advan- 
tages of  what  is  called  a  higher  education.  Whether 
the  persons  whose  names  are  recorded  are  to  be 
considered  the  successful  men  and  women  of  our 
day  depends  entirely  upon  the  definition  one  gives 
to  success.  Some  very  rich  men  are  represented  in 
the  volume,  but  a  far  larger  number  known  to  be 
equally  wealthy  are  omitted.  Besides,  it  may  be 
that  the  thirty  per  cent  who  had  only  meager  edu- 
cotional  advantages  have  larger  possessions  and 
wield  greater  influence  of  a  certain  sort  than  the 
remaining  seventy  per  cent. 

On  the  other  hand  the  men  and  women  whose 
names  appear  in  the  volume  may  justly  be  regarded 
as  representing  the  higher  thought  of  the  nation. 
Nearly  all  of  them  have  written  books  or  are  in  one 
way  or  another  creators  and  disseminators  of  ideas 
that  are  more  or  less  above  the  commonplace.  But 
we  look  in  vain  for  the  names  of  scores  and  hun- 
dreds of  rich  men  with  which  the  press  has  made 
us  familiar.  The  book  is  therefore  evidence  that  a 

22 


A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION  23 

person  who  has  had  a  systematic  education  is  much 
more  likely  to  make  a  mark,  however  brief  its  dur- 
ation, in  the  world,  than  one  who  has  not;  but  it 
affords  no  proof  and  furnishes  little  evidence  that  it 
contributes  materially  to  worldly  success. 

If  we  except  a  score  or  two  of  names  whose  pos- 
sessors have  become  wealthy  through  fortunate  in- 
vestments or  by  inheritance  and  who  have  also 
literary  tastes,  it  is  probable  that  "Who's  Who" 
represents  but  a  very  small  part  of  the  material 
resources  of  the  country  in  private  hands.  We 
should  also  remember  that  it  contains  the  names  of 
the  members  of  Congress.  These  men,  as  a  rule, 
certainly  do  not  stand  for  success  in  any  exalted 
sense  of  the  term;  for  it  is  well  known  that  the  mere 
fact  of  election  signifies  nothing  and  that  the  legis- 
lation of  the  country  is  chiefly  managed  by  a  very 
small  part  of  the  entire  body  of  lawmakers. 

It  is  far  better  to  take  the  evidence  of  these  sta- 
tistics for  just  what  they  are  worth  and  to  refrain 
from  giving  them  a  value  that  is  in  great  measure 
supposititious.  They  demonstrate  that  the  young 
men  and  women  who  wish  to  count  for  something 
more  than  the  millions  that  are  content  to  live  their 
little  day  and  be  forgotten;  who  place  the  highest 
value  upon  "things  of  the  mind"  rather  than  upon 
things  of  the  body;  and  who  are  concerned  about 
those  treasures  that  perish  not  in  the  using,  will  be 
greatly  profited  if  they  start  in  life  with  a  syste- 
matic education. 


IX. 

An  education  may  be  liberal,  as  the  phrase  goes, 
yet  fail  to  have  a  liberalizing  effect  upon  its  posses- 
sor. Above  all  things  it  must  be  a  life  process, 
which  unfortunately  too  often  it  is  not.  Socrates 
and  Plato  and  Aristotle  insisted  on  this  more  than 
two  millenniums  ago. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  great  majority  of 
those  who  have  enjoyed  the  best  educational  advan- 
tages in  early  life  reach  the  limits  of  their  intellect- 
ual and  moral  development  about  the  time  they 
have  attained  their  physical  growth.  They  increase 
in  knowledge  and  experience  but  their  education 
comes  to  a  stand-still.  Saint  Paul  exhorted  the 
brethren  to  strive  to  attain  "unto  the  measure  of  the 
stature  of  the  fullness  of  Christ",  not  because  he 
thought  complete  attainment  was  possible  but  be- 
cause striving  meant  wholesome  discipline.  In  like 
manner  it  behooves  those  who  desire  earnestly  to 
gain  the  full  measure  of  educational  enlightment 
and  refinement  never  to  cease  in  their  endeavors 
after  largeness  of  intellectual  vision,  and  complete 
freedom  from  preconceived  opinions. 

There  is  no  rest  for  the  seeker  after  truth,  but  this 
unrest  is  the  most  glorious  attribute  of  man.  The 

24 


A    LIBEKAL   EDUCATION  25 

power  to  grasp  comprehensively  the  psychic  forces 
that  are  about  us  and  to  control  our  inner  impulses 
is  within  the  reach  of  every  one,  though  not  with  an 
equal  expenditure  of  effort  or  at  the  same  period  of 
life.  In  early  years  the  impulses  are  comparatively 
strong  and  the  regulative  faculty  relatively  feeble. 
The  child  can  not  govern  itself  except  under  con- 
straint or  persuasion.  Ere  long  however  it  begins 
to  see  the  wisdom  of  using  the  will  wisely.  But  the 
time  never  comes  to  any  of  us  when  we  can  safely 
release  ourselves  from  the  control  of  the  will.  There 
is  much  truth  in  the  saying  that  men  are  but  chil- 
dren of  a  larger  growth.  When  they  can  no  longer 
have  teachers  they  ought  courageously  to  assume 
the  duty  of  teaching  themselves. 


X. 

As  the  primary  and  indeed  the  only  object  of  a 
liberal  education  should  be  a  noble  life,  the  man 
who  has  been  thus  educated  will  not  be  one  thing 
while  professing  to  be  something  else;  he  will  not 
seek  to  gain  a  point  by  understatement  or  casuistry; 
he  will  be  fearless  in  the  maintenance  of  the  right 
and  in  the  defense  of  the  truth  because  he  knows 
better  than  anybody  else  that  the  truth  will  ulti- 
mately prevail.  His  life  will  be  regulated  upon  the 
principle  that  it  is  better  to  be  faithful  than  famous; 
honest,  than  to  gain  the  title  of  " honorable." 

Goethe  says,  "Let  a  man  be  noble,  helpful  and 
good,  for  this  alone  distinguishes  him  from  all  the 
beings  we  know."  The  community  does  not  demand 
anything  of  the  liberally  educated  man  that  it  has 
not  a  perfect  right  to  ask  of  every  citizen;  but  it 
rightfully  expects  more.  The  moral  virtues  know 
no  distinction  of  class.  But  the  liberally  educated 
man  ought  to  represent  the  acme  of  excellence;  he 
ought  in  a  large  measure  to  be  a  model  for  those 
who  are  less  fortunate  in  their  mental  make-up;  his 
influence  ought  always  to  be  elevating  for  those 
who  come  under  it. 

Says   Coleridge:    "To  carry  on  the   feelings   of 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  27 

childhood  into  the  powers  of  manhood,  to  combine 
the  child's  sense  of  wonder  and  novelty  with  the 
appearances  which  every  day,  for  perhaps  forty 
years,  had  rendered  familiar; — this  is  the  character 
and  privilege  of  genius,  and  one  of  the  marks  which 
distinguish  genius  from  talent."  It  is  the  high 
prerogative  of  an  inquistive  mind  never  to  grow  old. 
"The  used  key  is  always  bright,"  says  Poor  Richard. 
Flowing  water  never  becomes  putrid. 

Every  one  can  readily  recall  the  names  of  not  a 
few  men  now  living  or  recently  deceased  who  pre- 
served their  intellectual  vigor  almost  or  quite  un- 
impaired up  to  four  score  and  beyond.  Every  event 
in  the  most  uneventful  life  may  be  viewed  from  a 
different  angle  since  the  observer  is  never  the  same 
two  days  in  succession.  He  is,  compared  with  him- 
self, like  the  different  spectators  looking  upon  a 
rainbow, — it  is  not  the  same  to  any  two.  Nor 
is  this  the  sole  privilege  of  genius  or  even  of 
talent  of  a  high  order ;  it  may  be  shared 
by  all.  It  is  a  brotherhood  into  which  any  one 
may  be  initiated  who  is  willing  to  make  the 
necessary  preparation  and  go  through  the  requisite 
ceremonies. 

Genius  is  spontaneous.  It  reaches  results  and 
forms  conclusions  without  knowing  how  and  with- 
out being  able  to  render  a  reason.  It  is  therefore 
not  an  absurd  supposition  that  the  diligent  searcher 
after  new  truth  receives  more  pleasure  from  his 


28  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

quest  than  genius,  since,  to  use  a  homely  phrase, 
he  "has  to  earn  what  he  gets." 

The  mere  laborer,  the  hewer  of  wood  and  drawer 
of  water,  though  an  important  part  of  every  state, 
has  usually  enough  to  do  and  often  more  than 
enough,  to  keep  himself  from  straying  out  of  the 
straight  and  narrow  path  of  rectitude,  but  the  liber- 
ally educated  man  not  only  ought  to  be  able  to  hold 
himself  well  in  hand,  he  ought  to  be  able  also  to 
help  others.  He  ought  to  act  habitually  according 
to  the  maxim,  "  Do  unto  others  as  if  you  were  the 
others."  According  to  Roman  Catholic  theology, 
some  persons  are  capable  of  performing  works  of 
supererogation,  that  is,  more  good  works  than  God 
requires  or  are  necessary  to  their  own  salvation. 
In  like  manner  the  liberally  educated  man  should 
always  be  ready  to  do  works  of  supererogation  in  a 
moral  and  intellectual  sense.  He  ought  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places  to  stand  for  that  influence 
which  Swift,  and  Matthew  Arnold  after  him,  calls 
"  sweetness  and  light ". 

This  immense  association  to  which  we  must  belong 
whether  we  will  or  no,  called  society,  needs  intelli- 
gent leaders, — men  who  have  the  lessons  of  the  past 
well  in  hand  and  who  know  how  to  use  them  for 
future  guidance.  Surely,  there  is  no  sadder  specta- 
cle in  this  world  than  men  and  women,  whether 
well  or  ill  informed,  whose  sole  object  in  life  is 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  29 

money  or  sensuous  gratification.  If  such  persons 
have  been  created  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God, 
they  have  fallen  far  from  their  first  estate. 


XI 

Whatever  be  the  factors  that  enter  into  a  liberal 
education,  there  are  two  and  perhaps  only  two  that 
are  essential  and  indispensable,  assuming  that  a 
foundation  has  been  laid  in  a  knowledge  of  the 
branches  taught  in  all  colleges  and  reputable  high 
schools.  These  two  factors  are  represented  by  his- 
tory and  literature.  History  sets  before  us  what 
men  have  done.  It  exhibits  to  us  in  the  most  ef- 
fective way  how  much  sorrow  has  been  brought 
upon  the  world  by  deceit,  by  ill-advised  ambition, 
by  lack  of  principle  and  of  sympathy  in  rulers  and 
ruled,  by  a  willingness  to  sacrifice  everything  and 
everybody  on  the  altar  of  selfishness,  preferring  im- 
mediate gains  to  the  benefits  that  come  to  men  and 
to  their  decendants  who  regulate  their  conduct  both 
private  and  public  by  the  unvarying  rules  of  recti- 
tude. It  teaches  the  inevitable  results  of  a  disre- 
gard of  the  fundamental  principles  of  all  social  and 
civic  life,  a  principle  that  all  men  recognize  and  ac- 
knowledge in  theory,  but  which  they  too  often  ig- 
nore or  disregard  in  practice,  namely  justice.* 

*  "While  of  all  studies  in  the  whole  range  of  knowledge  the 
study  of  law  affords  the  most  conservative  training,  so  the  study 
of  modern  history  is,  next  to  theology  itself,  and  only  next  in  so 

30 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  31 

In  order  to  study  history  profitably  it  is  not  nec- 
essary to  begin  at  the  beginning,  though  it  is 
best  to  do  so,  for  the  lesson  is  always  the  same. 
We  should  begin  with  the  history  of  Greece  because 
it  records  the  efforts  of  the  most  highly  endowed 
people  that  have  dwelt  upon  the  earth  to  solve  the 
same  problems,  or  at  least  many  of  them,  that  still 
engage  the  attention  of  the  civilized  world.  His- 
tory teaches  us  that  there  is  no  short  cut  to  reforms 
that  all  right-minded  people  advocate  and  that  the 
social  systems  of  our  day  are  the  result  of  a  gradual 
psychic  evolution. 

Moreover,  a  thorough  course  of  training  in  an- 
cient Greek  history  is  not  so  huge  a  task  as  one 
might  suppose  who  is  not  conversant  with  the  con- 
ditions of  the  problem.  Even  the  great  work  of 
Grote  can  be  pretty  well  mastered  in  a  few  years  by 
persons  who  have  many  other  things  to  do.  Then 
there  are  the  histories  of  Curtius  or  of  Holm  in  four 
or  five  volumes,  and  the  excellent  one-volume  man- 
ual of  Bury,  if  one  does  not  care  to  go  through  the 
originals  from  which  these  works  are  drawn. 

Roman  history  is  almost  equally  profitable.  The 
sphere  of  its  action  is  much  larger,  though  the  psy- 
chic forces  that  enter  into  it  are  less  manifold  and 

far  as  theology  rests  on  a  devine  revelation,  the  most  thoroughly 
religious  training  the  mind  can  receive." — Stubbs. 

Cicero  calls  history  the  witness  of  the  times,  the  light  of  truth, 
the  imperishable  memory,  the  teacher  of  life,  the  expounder  of 
the  past. 


32  A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

less  complex,  at  least  until  the  decline  of  the  em- 
pire had  fully  set  in.  The  problems  with  which 
the  government  had  to  deal  kept  growing  more  and 
more  numerous.  They  could  not  be  solved  by  ad- 
herance  to  traditional  methods  and  maxims  and 
complete  disintegration  was  the  result. 


XII 


A  study  of  history,  especially  of  those  peoples 
that  may  justly  be  regarded  as  relatively  the  most 
advanced,  makes  it  plain  as  the  sun  at  noonday, 
except  to  the  blind,  that  the  preponderance  has 
always  been  with  those  nations  that  possessed  the 
largest  number  of  excellences;  though  we  must  not 
judge  any  period  of  the  past  by  the  standard  of  our 
own  times.  It  is  interesting  and  ought  to  be  profit- 
able to  note  how  uniformly  the  leading  historians 
have  deduced  from  their  studies  the  maxim  ex- 
pressed by  Schiller  that  it  is  the  curse  of  an  evil 
deed  that  it  continues  to  beget  itself.  Wrong 
breeds  wrong;  injustice  engenders  injustice.  This 
is  the  inexorable  law  of  civic  life. 

Moral  principles  are  intuitive,  but  they  need  to 
be  developed  by  organized  society,  by  government, 
or  at  least  under  the  protection  of  government.  All 
government  must  stand  for  justice ;  otherwise  it  is 
doomed.  Events  move  slowly ;  but  like  the  gla- 
ciers of  geologic  time,  they  are  irresistible.  The 
author  of  the  Iliad  opens  his  great  drama  with  an 
invocation  to  the  epic  muse  to  aid  him  in  fitly  set- 
ting forth  the  ruinous  wrath  of  Achilles  that  brought 
innumerable  woes  upon  the  Greeks.  But  with  the 

33 


34:  A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

characteristic  fatalism  of  his  age,  he  ascribes  them 
to  the  will  of  the  supreme  god.  The  point  to  be 
noticed  is  that  anger,  blind  and  unreasoning  im- 
pulse, is  the  cause  of  this  multitude  of  sorrows.  In 
another  place,  however,  this  same  god  is  repre- 
sented as  saying  that  men  blame  the  dwellers  on 
Olympus  for  their  misfortunes  when  in  truth  it  is 
their  own  follies  that  cause  them. 


XIII 

At  the  beginning  of  his  history  Herodotus 
adduces  the  testimony  of  the  Phoenicians,  Greeks, 
and  Persians  as  to  the  cause  that  brought  about  the 
hostility  between  the  two  latter.  Each  nation 
holds  the  other  responsible  and  itself  guiltless. 
Both  admit  that  the  animosity  was  caused  by  the 
infliction  of  some  wrong,  some  act  of  injustice  for 
which  the  blame  is  to  be  laid  anywhere  but  at 
home.  Diodorus  of  Sicily  begins  his  work  with  a 
plea  for  the  recognition  of  the  value  of  history  as  a 
guide  to  conduct.  If  the  counsel  of  an  old  man  is 
of  more  value,  in  any  given  case,  than  that  of  a 
youth  it  is  because  of  his  larger  experience.  For  a 
similar  reason  the  counsel  of  history  is  to  be  more 
highly  prized  than  that  of  either  because  it  makes 
available  the  experience  of  many  generations. 
Thomas  Fuller,  the  witty  divine  and  historian,  al- 
most paraphrases  these  words  when  he  says:  "  His- 
tory maketh  a  young  man  to  be  old  without  either 
wrinkles  or  gray  hair,  privileging  him  with  the 
experience  of  age  without  either  the  infirmities  or 
the  inconveniences  thereof." 

Diodorus  maintains  that  history  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  custodian  of  the  nobility  of  the  noble; 

35 


36  A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

as  a  witness  against  the  villainy  of  the  vicious  and 
as  a  benefactress  for  all  time.  Seeing  that  mythol- 
ogy, which  is  pure  invention,  does  much  to  ennoble 
those  who  have  deserved  well  of  their  kind,  how 
much  more  is  to  be  expected  that  history,  the  herald 
of  truth,  the  mother  of  philosophy,  should  promote 
righteousness  in  a  high  degree  ! 

Polybius  is  convinced  that  the  study  of  history  is 
educational  if  it  gives  a  clear  view  of  the  causes  of 
events.  It  thus  offers  to  men  the  opportunity  to 
choose  the  better  policy  in  any  given  case,  assum- 
ing of  course  that  he  who  is  to  make  choice  is  in 
position  to  influence  the  course  of  events.  Our  au- 
thor accordingly  often  reminds  his  readers  that  his 
history  is  in  a  large  measure  a  demonstration  of 
the  truth  that  the  supremacy  is  always  with  the 
best;  that  it  is  before  everything  else  a  history  of 
deeds,  of  actions,  rather  than  a  record  of  legends,  of 
myths,  and  the  like,  in  the  study  of  which  he  can 
discover  small  profit.  History  becomes  a  guide  to 
conduct  when  it  shows  the  comparative  results  of 
honorable  and  dishonorable  conduct. 

Sallust  opens  his  history  of  the  Jugurthine  war 
with  a  sneer  at  those  who  attribute  their  misfor- 
tunes and  their  evil  deeds  to  fate.  He  declares  that 
if  man  were  as  eager  in  the  pursuit  of  what  is  noble 
as  of  what  is  useless  or  base,  he  could  control  cir- 
cumstances quite  as  much  as  he  is  controlled  by 
them. 


A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION  37 

Livy  tells  us  in  the  preface  to  his  great  history 
of  Rome,  that  he  has  undertaken  the  heavy  task 
for  several  reasons,  but  above  everything  else  be- 
cause he  believes  that  "  This  is  the  great  advantage 
to  be  derived  from  the  study  of  history;  indeed  the 
only  one  which  can  make  it  answer  any  profitable 
and  salutary  purpose  ;  for  being  abundantly  fur- 
nished with  clear  and  distinct  examples  of  every 
kind  of  conduct,  we  may  select  for  ourselves  and 
for  the  state  to  which  we  belong,  such  as  are  worthy 
of  imitation,  and  carefully  noting  such  as  being 
dishonorable  in  their  principles,  are  equally  so  in 
their  effects,  learn  to  avoid  them." 

In  the  preface  to  his  Memoirs  Count  von  Beust 
says:  "As  the  voice  of  the  prophet  is  a  rousing  and 
a  warning  voice,  so  would  be  the  voice  of  the  his- 
torian, if  he  received  more  attention  than  has 
usually  fallen  to  the  lot  of  prophets." 

It  is  a  belief  held  by  some  well  informed  persons 
that  the  lessons  of  history  have  no  value  as  a  guide 
under  subsequent  conditions.  Sad  mistake!  One 
can  not  read  the  works  of  Plato,  of  Aristotle  and  of 
other  thinkers  of  antiquity  without  having  the  con- 
viction brought  home  to  him  to  which  Jowett  gives 
expression  in  the  words:  "How  little  have  we  added 
except  what  has  been  gained  by  the  greater  experi- 
ence of  history ! "  Plutarch  wrote  a  series  of 
biographies — and  biography  is  history .  by  sections 
— for  a  purely  moral  purpose.  These  biographies 


38  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

are  an  endeavor  on  his  part  to  collect  and  to  set 
forth  the  testimony  afforded  by  the  conduct  of  the 
leading  men  of  the  past  on  the  question  whether  it 
is  ever  profitable  for  a  statesman  to  do  wrong  or  to 
condone  injustice. 


XIV. 

History  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  a  department 
of  psychology.  It  is  however  not  so  much  a  depart- 
ment of  psychology  as  the  resultant  of  psychic 
forces  operating  in  the  life  of  peoples  and  nations. 
Within  the  last  three  quarters  of  a  century  it  has 
become  in  a  great  measure,  a  study  of  the  impon- 
derable forces  that  have  ruled  the  world.  Albeit, 
now  and  then,  one  of  the  choice  spirits  of  antiquity, 
one  of  the  seers  of  bygone  civilizations,  had  a  clear 
perception  of  this  truth.  Thucydides  sets  forth 
the  high  prerogative  of  the  historian  when  he  tells 
his  readers  that  he  has  written  for  those  who  "are 
desirous  to  have  a  true  view  of  what  has  happened 
and  of  the  like  or  similar  things  which  in  accord- 
ance with  human  nature  will  probably  happen 
hereafter."  He  adds  that  if  his  readers  shall  pro- 
nounce what  he  has  written  to  be  useful  he  will  be 
satisfied.  No  wonder  that  in  the  consciousness  of 
having  honestly  striven  to  set  forth  the  truth  he 
exclaims:  "My  history  is  an  everlasting  possession, 
not  a  prize  composition  which  is  heard  and  forgot- 
ten." He  accordingly  proceeds  to  unfold  before  his 
readers  the  painful  tragedy  that  ended  in  the  over- 
throw of  his  country.  For  him,  man,  and  man 

39 


40  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

almost  exclusively,  is  the  object  of  interest.  He 
takes  little  account  of  physical  conditions  evidently 
because  he  considers  these  of  secondary  importance. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  any  other  book  sets  forth 
more  clearly  and  with  greater  force  the  demoraliz- 
ing influence  of  party  spirit;  the  baneful  effects  of 
a  policy  that  seeks  only  the  immediate  advantage 
while  utterly  ignoring  the  principles  and  claims  of 
right  and  justice.  Thucydides'  History  of  the 
Peloponnesian  War  is  a  sad,  sad  book,  and  all  the 
more  so  because  of  its  evident  honesty  and  truth- 
fulness. 


XV. 


There  is,  of  course,  a  physical  and  a  physiological 
side  to  history.  National  character  is  to  some  ex- 
tent the  resultant  of  soil  and  climate.  But  no  man 
who  has  taken  the  trouble  to  penetrate  beneath  the 
surface  of  things  will  assert  that  justice  and  right, 
liberty  and  equity,  are  determined  by  external 
conditions,  or  that  these  are  of  such  a  character 
anywhere  upon  the  face  of  the  habitable  globe  as  to 
render  the  promotion  of  the  moral  virtues  by  the 
state  impossible.  Hegel  uttered  a  profound  truth 
when  he  wrote  that  the  philosophy  of  history  is  the 
philosophy  of  mind  which  traces  the  evolution  of 
reason  manifesting  itself  in  the  state.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  a  single  one  of  the  great  historians  would 
have  hesitated  to  subscribe  to  the  doctrine  that 
human  history  is  the  record  of  the  gradual  triumph 
of  conscience  and  reason  over  the  animal  forces  of 
instinct  and  temperament  in  man.  "The  main 
progress  of  mankind  lies  in  the  development  of  the 
ethical  idea,  which  existing  in  our  nature  as  a  form 
of  mind,  an  element  of  human  personality,  has  ever 
more  and  more  unfolded  itself  in  history  as  the 

41 


42  A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

vivifying  principle  of  those  ordinances  and  institu- 
tions whereby  we  live  as  civilized  men;  as  the 
justification  of  the  common  might  without  which  it 
would  be  mere  brute  force." 


XVI 

It  was  the  conviction  of  the  late  Lord  Acton,  than 
whom  no  more  penetrating  historian  ever  put  pen 
to  paper,  that  progress  does  not  consist  in  a  con- 
stantly deepening  insight  into  the  laws  of  physical 
nature,  but  in  the  profounder  conviction  of  the  sac- 
redness  and  worth  of  man  as  an  ethical  being  en- 
dowed with  volition,  choice  and  responsibility. 
Blind  indeed  must  be  the  student  of  the  records  of 
any  country,  or  of  the  public  life  of  any  statesman, 
who  can  not  see  therein  "a  moral  order,  a  reason, 
an  ideal";  who  will  not  be  convinced  that  it  is  the 
privilege  of  every  man,  by  conforming  himself  to 
that  order,  that  reason,  that  ideal,  to  forward,  ac- 
cording to  his  measure,  the  progress  of  the  world, 
to  be  a  fellow-worker  in  the  unending  purpose  that 
runs  through  the  ages.  We  can  not  violate  this 
order  with  impunity;  we  can  not  turn  aside,  except 
temporarily,  the  progress  of  the  world  toward  that 
far-off  divine  event.  If  our  age  neglects  its  oppor- 
tunities or  fails  to  measure  up  to  its  responsibilities 
or  proves  false  to  its  trust,  there  will  come  after  us 
those  who  have  learned  wisdom  from  the  disasters 
that  overwhelmed  us.  Just  as  men  can  not  violate 
the  laws  of  the  physical  being,  even  ignorantly, 


44:  A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

without  paying  the  penalty,  so  they  can  not  do 
violence  to  the  laws  of  their  moral  being  without 
bringing  a  measure  of  sorrow  upon  themselves,  but 
a  far  greater  measure  upon  the  state  to  which  they 
owe  allegiance.  Human  responsibility  is  according 
to  opportunity  and  ability,  not  according  to  knowl- 
edge, since  it  is  every  man's  business  to  know  what 
his  duties  are,  public  no  less  than  private.  Napo- 
leon was  wont  to  declare  that  there  are  two  moral- 
ities: one  for  personal  and  one  for  public  affairs. 
The  same  doctrine  was  often  upheld  before  his  time 
and  still  has  its  champions,  though  happily  their 
number  is  growing  less  with  the  progress  of  enlight- 
ment.  No  more  powerful  demonstration  of  the 
falsity  of  this  doctrine  could  be  imagined  than  the 
career  of  the  Great  Corsican.  Much  wiser  are  the 
words  of  Lord  Acton:  "I  exhort  you  never  to  debase 
the  moral  currency,  or  to  lower  the  standard  of  rec- 
titude, but  to  try  others  by  the  final  maxim  that 
governs  your  own  lives,  and  to  allow  no  man  and 
no  cause  to  escape  the  undying  penalty  which 
history  has  the  power  to  inflict  on  wrong.  If  in 
our  uncertainty  we  must  often  err,  it  may  be  some- 
times better  to  risk  excess  in  rigor  than  in  indul- 
gence; for  then  at  least  we  do  no  injury  by  loss  of 
principle." 

There  is  much  history  that  is  well  worth  study, 
particularly  that  of  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia.  How- 
ever, on  the  one  hand,  the  records  of  these  countries 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  45 

are  still  very  incomplete  and  incompletely  deciph- 
ered; and  on  the  other,  the  influence  of  the  people 
who  dwelt  in  these  regions  upon  modern  life  is 
somewhat  remote.  Besides,  almost  every  recent 
history  of  the  Greeks  touches  upon  the  connection 
of  their  civilization  with  that  of  the  older  peoples 
and  endeavors  to  set  forth  the  ideas  that  were  bor- 
rowed from  the  latter  by  the  former.  What  is 
called  the  history  of  the  Eastern  Nations  is  therefore 
a  field  for  the  specialist  rather  than  for  the  general 
reader.  It  is  only  when  we  enter  on  the  study  of 
Grecian  history*  that  we  come  face  to  face  with 

*The  writing  of  history^in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  originat- 
ed with  the  Greeks.  It  is  true  the  ancient  nations  of  the  East  had 
their  historians,  but  their  object  was  to  glorify  the  deeds  of  their 
rulers  in  war  or  peace  Their  defeats  aud  their  wrong-doings  are 
not  recorded  The  history  of  Israel  was  written  to  set  forth  the 
dealings  of  God  with  his  chosen  people:  how  he  rewarded  them 
for  keeping  his  commandments  and  punished  them  for  disobed- 
ience. Not  so  the  Greeks.  Herodotus  says  that  he  writes  in  the 
hope  of  "preventing  the  great  and  wonderful  actions  of  the  Greeks 
and  the  Barbarians  from  losing  their  due  meed  of  glory."  No- 
tice, that  he  includes  the  deeds  of  the  barbarians  as  well  as  those 
of  the  Greeks.  He  is  often  in  error;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
he  wilfully  falsifies  or  knowingly  admits  anything  from  motives 
of  patriotism  or  prejudice.  Thucydides  is  so  impartial  that  if  he 
had  not  told  us  we  should  not  know  whether  he  was  an  Athenian, 
a  Spartan  or  a  Corinthian.  He  looks  at  all  sides  of  every  ques- 
tion. He  tries  to  fathom  the  motives  that  influenced  all  the 
actors  that  he  brings  upon  the  stage.  He  summons  all  the  wit- 
nesses who  can  give  any  testimony  that  will  enable  him  to  get  at 
the  truth.  It  is  for  these  reasons  that  Ranke,  the  greatest  his- 
torian of  modem  times,  calls  himself  a  pupil  of  Thucydides. 

Profess&r  Zielinski  (St.  Petersburg). 


46 


A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION 


modern  ideas,  or  rather  with  ideas  that  we  ignorantly 
call  "modern."  The  history  of  Greece  is  gradually 
merged  in  that  of  Rome.  The  Roman  transferred, 
more  or  less  transmuted  ideas  into  Italy  whence 
they  spread  over  Europe  and  to  a  greater  or  less  ex- 
tent have  influenced  modern  life.  It  would  per- 
haps be  putting  the  case  too  strong  to  allege  that 
the  history  of  the  world  is  continuous  from  its  re- 
motest beginnings  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile  and  the 
Euphrates  to  our  own  day;  but  it  is  quite  within 
bounds  to  say  that  such  is  the  case  when  we  come 
to  the  annals  of  that  brilliant  people  who  settled 
around  the  shores  and  on  the  islands  of  the  Aegean 
in  historic  time. 

This  thought  forces  itself  upon  my  attention 
again  and  again  and  again,  as  I  read  the  story,  sad 
enough  in  truth,  of  man's  dealings  with  man,  that 
he  was  not  made  to  mourn  but  to  be  happy, — not 
all  the  time  certainly,  but  the  larger  part  of  the  days 
he  spends  upon  this  earth.  There  has  always  been 
in  him  a  germ  that  has  struggled  to  develop  itself; 
that  has  made  its  way  toward  the  light,  around 
stones  and  rubbish,  through  briars  and  brambles; 
that  in  spite  of  all  obstacles  and  adverse  conditions, 
has  never  been  quite  dead.  This  innate  spark  of 
goodness  has  often  smouldered  under  the  ashes  of 
selfishness  or  stupidity;  has  sometimes  burned 
dimly  under  the  miasmatic  atmosphere  of  ignor- 
ance and  prejudice;  but  it  has  never  been  extin- 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  47 

guislied.  When  the  right  moment  has  come;  when 
the  proper  conditions  have  arisen;  when  a  favoring 
breeze,  as  it  were,  from  the  realms  of  the  divine  has 
blown  upon  it,  then  has  it  burst  into  a  flame  and 
illumined  what  was  before  thought  to  be  impene- 
trable gloom. 

Bonvalot,  the  celebrated  French  traveler,  after 
visiting  almost  all  parts  of  the  earth,  declares  that 
"  one  finds  honest  people  everywhere,  but  not  many." 
The  student  of  history  is  constrained  to  say  that 
one  finds  honest  people  in  every  age  of  the  world, 
but  not  many.  As  the  Lord  was  willing  to  pre- 
serve Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  if  there  were  found  in 
them  ten  righteous,  so  it  has  often  happened  that  a 
few  men  of  probity  have  saved  states  and  cities  and 
communities.  While  then  history  teaches  us  the 
sorrowful  lessons  of  the  past,  it  also  holds  aloft  the 
beacon  light  of  faith.  The  story  of  bygone  days  if 
rightly  learned,  will  deeply  impress  upon  each  succeed- 
ing generation  that  those  who  have  labored  honestly, 
earnestly,  intelligently  for  the  good  of  others  have 
not  labored  in  vain.  It  teaches  us  too  that  if  we 
faithfully  perform  our  work,  we  may  expect  as  a 
reward  something  more  substantial  than  a  hope 
and  a  shadow.* 

*  Since  the  following  was  written  I  have  come  across  the  fol- 
lowing in  a  recent  number  of  a  Review.  It  so  strongly  supports 
the  position  taken  in  the  text  that  I  add  it  in  a  foot-note.  Some- 
one has  said  that  every  science  of  man  is  auxiliary  to  the  making 
of  history.  ' '  This  is  literally  true.  The  historian  must  have  a  good 


48  A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

linguistic  training  especially  on  the  side  of  philology ;  for  without  a 
knowledge  of  languages,  no  historic  study  can  be  more  than 
elementary.  He  must  know  much  of  economics,  social  science, 
jurisprudence,  philosophy  and  theology,  and  be  familiar,  in 
some  measure,  with  the  physical  sciences.  It  is  more  than  ever 
necessary  that  he  know  certain  subjects  which  have  been  called 
the  '  satellites  of  history;'  as  numismatics,  genealogies,  chronol- 
ogy, mythology,  and  archaeology.  He  must  have  a  literary 
training  to  make  his  story  readable;  the  art  that  will  give  a  vivid 
impression  to  the  reader  and  create  a  real  picture  of  the  times  of 
which  he  writes.  *  *  *  The  historian,  Freeman,  in  his  inaug- 
ural address  at  the  University  of  Oxford,  bade  to  his  fellowship 
'any  who  feel  a  call  to  learning  as  an  object  for  its  own  sake/ 
'But  remember,'  he  adds,  'that  it  is  to  the  pursuit  of  knowledge 
for  its  own  sake  that  I  would  call  you;  to  the  pursuit  of  know- 
ledge, the  pursuit  of  truth,  to  that  learning  which  is  said  to  be 
better  than  house  and  land  but  which  is  perhaps  not  the  path 
best  adapted  to  the  winning  of  houses  and  land:  or  if  there  is  any 
object  beyond,  higher  than  the  search  after  truth  for  its  own 
sake,  it  will  be  the  hope  that  our  studies  of  the  past  may  be  found 
to  have  after  all  their  use  in  the  living  present.'  No  other  branch 
of  knowledge  has  so  close  a  connection  with  mere  literature  as 
history,  and  this  has  led  to  the  controversy  between  those  who 
think  everything  should  be  sacrificed  to  historical  accuracy,  to 
scientific  method  and  detail,  and  another  group  who  insist  on  the 
preeminent  claims  of  history  as  literature.  '  The  champions  of 
history  as  science,  and  history  as  literature,  mutually  yearn  to 
exterminate  one  another,'  says  a  clever  critic.  Even  those  who 
hold  a  middle  ground,  that  would  combine  accuracy  with  fact  and 
interpretation  with  excellence  in  literary  style,  admit  that  the 
unavoidable  connection  of  history  and  literature  gives  rise  to 
certain  difficulties.  There  is  the  constant  and  almost  unconsci- 
ous temptation  to  sacrifice  accuracy  to  effect.  Professor  Free- 
man admits  that  '  the  historian,  if  he  is  to  get  beyond  annals, 
must  have  some  kind  of  style,  good  or  bad,  and  it  would  better 
be  a  good  one,'  but  he  thinks  the  danger  is  great  of  preferring  a 
way  of  writing  history  which  tickles  the  popular  fancy.  '  We 
may  be  tempted,'  he  says,  '  to  envy  the  lot  of  the  geometer  or 


A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION  49 

the  chemist,  in  whose  way  there  are  no  such  pitfalls.  The  most 
winning  style,  the  choicest  metaphors,  would  be  thrown  away  if 
they  were  devoted  to  proving  that  any  two  sides  of  a  triangle  are 
not  always  greater  than  a  third  side.  When  they  are  devoted  to 
prove  that  a  man  cut  off  his  wife's  head  one  day  and  married 
her  maid  the  next  morning  out  of  sheer  love  of  country,  they  win 
believers  for  the  paradox.'  *  *  *  Another  significant  fact  is 
its  fuller  recognition  of  the  ethical  ends  of  history.  History  is 
no  mere  story  of  the  past  to  satisfy  our  curiosity:  it  is  '  human- 
ity becoming  and  .being  conscious  of  itself.'  Its  main  value  is 
what  Froude  so  nobly  sets  forth:  '  That  of  a  voice  forever 
sounding  across  the  centuries  the  laws  of  right  and  wrong  ;  that 
justice  alone  can  endure  and  live.  Injustice  and  falsehood  may 
be  long-lived,  but  doomsday  comes  at  last  to  them,  in  French 
revolutions  and  other  terrible  ways.  The  world  is  coming  to  see 
with  Carlyle  that  '  of  all  bibles,  the  frightf ullest  to  disbelieve  in 
is  this  Bible  of  Universal  History.'" 


XVII 

When  we  speak  of  literature  we  use  a  term  of 
very  wide  application.  It  is  used  of  almost  every  kind 
of  prose  and  verse,  good,  indifferent  and  bad.  A  his- 
tory of  English  literature,  for  example,  may  be 
compressed  into  a  single  volume  or  it  may  be  ex- 
panded into  a  small  library.  De  Quincey  says: 
"There  is  first  the  literature  of  knowledge,  and 
secondly  the  literature  of  power.  The  function  of 
the  first  is  to  teach;  the  function  of  the  second  is  to 
move\  the  first  is  a  rudder,  the  second  an  oar  or  a 
sail.  The  first  speaks  to  the  mere  discursive  under- 
standing; the  second  speaks,  ultimately,  it  may 
happen,  to  the  higher  understanding  or  reason  but 
always  through  affections  and  sympathy."  The 
first  deals  primarily  with  facts  and  their  relation  to 
each  other;  the  second  appeals  to  the  imagination, 
though  the  two  can  never  be  wholly  separated. 
The  former  is  usually  prose;  the  latter  poetry.  For 
example,  much  that  Tyndall  and  Huxley  and 
Spencer  wrote  is  rightly  classed  as  literature.  These 
writers  deal  almost  entirely  with  facts  or  with  what 
are  accepted  as  facts  and  with  the  relations  of  these 
facts  to  one  another.  These  facts  are  perceived  by 
the  senses  and  the  reasoning  powers;  they  are 

50 


A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION  51 

arranged  under  the  direction  of  the  imagination 
and  the  aesthetic  sense.  Many  things  exist  which 
are  not  visible  to  the  eye  of  the  body.  Prom- 
inence is  given  to  that  which  is  most  important 
while  that  which  is  least  important  is  made  sub- 
ordinate. Grant's  Memoirs  is  one  of  the  most 
notable  contributions  to  literature  by  an  American, 
yet  it  deals  entirely  with  facts.  When  we  call  to 
mind  what  a  mass  of  matter  our  Civil  War  called 
into  print  we  must  consider  it  remarkable  that 
only  a  very  small  portion  is  likely  to  take  rank 
with  this  unpretentious  volume.  The  story  is  so 
simply  told  that  almost  any  one  who  reads  it  thinks 
he  could  tell  it  as  well — until  he  tries. 

Innumerable  are  the  volumes  of  history  that  have 
been  written  since  the  days  of  Herodotus  and  Thu- 
cydides,  but  how  few  rise  to  the  rank  of  literature. 
In  literature  the  chief  factor  is  the  imagination. 
Any  subject  from  which  the  play  of  the  imagination 
is  wholly  excluded,  as,  for  example,  mathematics, 
can  not  be  treated  as  literature.* 

*  "The  highest  rank  in  literature  belongs  to  those  who  combine 
the  properly  poetical  with  philosophical  qualities  and  crown  both 
with  a  certain  robust  sincerity  of  common  sense.  The  sovereign 
poet  must  be  not  merely  a  singer,  but  also  a  sage;  to  passion  and 
music  he  must  add  large  ideas;  he  must  extend  in  width  as  well 
as  in  height;  but  besides  this  he  must  be  no  dreamer  or  fanatic, 
and  must  be  rooted  as  firmly  in  the  hard  earth  as  he  spreads  most 
widely  and  mounts  freely  towards  the  sky."  "Literature  is  per- 
haps at  least  a  compromise  between  truth  and  fancy,  between 
seriousness  and  trifling.  It  can  not  do  without  something  of  pop- 


•••*- 


52  A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

The  successful  historian  must  be  endowed  with  a 
vivid  imagination  in  order  to  be  able  to  transplant 
himself  amid  the  scenes  he  describes.  It  is  by  means 
of  this  faculty  that  the  poet  endows  irrational  ani- 
mals and  inanimate  objects  with  sentiency  and  even 
with  reason  and  will.  The  denizens  of  the  air  are 
favorite  themes  with  the  poets.  Shelley's  Cloud  is 
a  fine  example  of  the  attribution  of  purpose  emotion 
and  volition  to  inert  matter.  Both  this  poem  and 
his  Skylark  are  equal  to  the  finest  choral  odes  in 
the  Greek  dramas.  In  the  domain  of  prose  litera- 
ture there  is  probably  nothing  superior,  as  a  work 
of  imagination,  to  Gulliver's  Travels. 

ularity,  and  yet  the  writer  who  thinks  much  of  popularity  is 
unfaithful  to  his  mission;  on  the  other  hand  he  who  leans  too 
heavily  on  literature  breaks  through  into  science  or  practical 
business." — J.  R.  Seeley.  Neither  literature  nor  science  deals  ex- 
clusively with  those  subjects  that  are  of  the  highest  importance 
to  man;  but  of  the  former  at  least  it  must  be  said  that  it  always 
has  to  do  with  themes  that  are  in  the  highest  degree  interesting 
to  man. 

"Science  is  thought  embodied  in  writing;  literature  is 
thought  first  moulded  into  form  by  the  idealizing  process  of  the 
human  mind,  and  then,  when  so  moulded,  expressed  in  writing. 
Where  the  idealizing  process  has  been  employed  by  the  author, 
there,  in  whatever  branch  of  literature  it  may  be,  will  be  the  ap- 
peal to  the  imagination  of  the  reader.  For  this  power  to  affect 
the  imagination  revel  as  the  presence  of  the  '  something  more  * 
added  by  the  writer — the  presence,  that  is,  of  the  personal  ele- 
ment which  raises  history  or  biography  to  the  rank  of  literature, 
and  lends  a  new  value  to  the  work  of  the  philosopher  or  the  man 
of  science. " —  Worsfold. 

"The  world's  greatest  literature,  we  may  assume,  was  like  un- 
to this.  Science  can  be  duplicated  or  gone  over  again,  or  it  can 


A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION  53 

be  dropped  and  taken  up  again  at  the  same  point.  It  can  be  re- 
newed. The  highest  forms  of  literature  come  we  know  not 
whence  and  go  we  know  not  whither;  and  this  accounts  for  in- 
stances in  such  work  where  even  one  verse  remains  in  the  mem- 
ory of  mankind  while  all  the  rest  is  lost.  We  have  now  the  key 
to  that  atrophy  on  one  side  of  Darwin's  nature.  It  was  in  his 
case  the  Nemesis  of  Science — the  price  he  paid  for  his  magnifi- 
cent achievements.  Poetry  is  not  a  part  of  Science,  but  it  is,  as 
Wordsworth  once  said,  'the  antithesis  of  science';  it  is  a  world 
outside.  The  name  of  this  world,  we  may  conclude,  is  litera- 
ture."— T.  W.  Higginson. 

"  The  object  of  literature  is  delight;  its  soul  is  imagination;  its 
body  is  style.  Nothing  depends  upon  the  subject;  all  depends 
upon  the  treatment  of  the  subject.  It  is  not  necessary  that  a 
good  poet  or  a  good  prose  writer  should  be  a  good  man,  though 
it  is  a  pity  that  he  should  not  be.  And  literature  is  not  subject 
to  the  laws  of  morality,  though  it  is  to  those  of  manners. " — 
Saintsburg. 


XVIII. 

The  most  interesting  and  instructive  feature  of 
literature,  using  the  term  literature  in  a  somewhat 
limited  sense,  is  the  fact  that  from  the  remotest  times 
the  greatest  thinkers  have  pondered  the  weighty  prob- 
lems that  still  engage  the  attention  of  reflective 
minds.  The  prophets  of  Old  Testament  times;  the 
Greek  tragic  poets;  Plato,  Aristotle  and  many  other 
ancient  writers  perceived  the  conflict  between  human 
conduct  and  the  moral  law  just  as  clearly  as  we  see 
it  to-day.  Though  the  sphere  of  their  observations 
was  comparatively  circumscribed,  yet  in  so  far  as 
they  dealt  with  human  nature  and  human  motives 
their  materials  were  sufficiently  plentiful.  Their 
generalizations  were  drawn  from  fewer  data  but 
these  were  representative  in  their  character.  They 
recognized  that  men  can  not  escape  the  penalty  for 
infringements  of  the  moral  law;  but  how  to  make 
this  sufficiently  evident  to  those  who  were  chiefly 
responsible  for  the  destiny  of  society  was  a  problem 
that  seemed  to  the  Greeks  at  least  impossible  of 
solution.  Hence  an  undertone  of  despair,  or,  at 
best,  of  resignation,  permeates  their  writings.  In 
striking  contrast  with  this  is  modern  literature, 

especially  that  which  is  instinctively  if  not  distinct- 

54 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  55 

ively  Christian.  The  Greeks  felt  that  right  and 
justice  ought  to  prevail;  Jews  and  Christians,  that 
it  must  and  will  prevail.  There  is  nothing  in  an- 
cient Greek  or  Roman  literature  which  shows  that 
the  writer  believed  and  felt  that  somehow  good  must 
come  from  every  seeming  ill; 

"  That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet; 

That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  has  made  the  pile  complete." 

Certain  it  is  that  if  their  countrymen  had 
heeded  the  counsels  of  the  most  enlightened 
among  them,  whether  Greeks  or  Romans,  the  an- 
cient world  would  not  have  perished  as  it  did;  nor 
would  the  earth  for  nearly  a  thousand  years  have 
almost  everywhere  been  drinking  up  the  blood  of 
her  children.  But  the  practical  politicians,  and  in 
fact  the  practical  men  and  women  generally,  looked 
upon  the  thinkers  as  mere  dreamers  and  sentimen- 
talists, who  dwelt  in  an  ideal  world,  who  were  of  no 
use  where  offices  are  to  be  fought  for  and  the 
money  that  goes  with  them.  It  is  worth  any  man's 
study  to  note  how  little  our  manuals  of  ethics  differ 
from  Cicero's  Offices;  and  the  work  of  Cicero  was 
built  upon  a  Greek  foundation  of  Greek  materials. 
In  like  manner  there  are  few  writers  on  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  young  that  breathe  a  finer  spirit  than 
Quintilian  and  Plutarch.  Everywhere  we  find  the 
same  thought  made  prominent  that  Locke  so  forci- 


56  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

bly  put  when  he  wrote  that  the  love  of  truth  for 
truth's  sake  is  the  principal  part  of  human  perfec- 
tion and  the  seed-plot  of  all  other  virtues.  If,  there- 
fore, ambitious  young  people  are  sometimes  discour- 
aged because  there  is  so  much  they  would  like  to 
read,  let  them  take  heart  in  the  reflection  that 
among  all  the  mass  of  matter  that  pours  from  the 
press,  there  is  but  little  that  adds  to  the  sum  of 
available  human  knowledge. 


XIX 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  society  made  no  progress 
until  a  forward  movement  was  started  by  the  Greeks. 
For  thousands  of  years  the  people  that  we  are  wont 
to  call  civilized  lived  on  in  their  traditional  rou- 
tine, each  generation  doing  just  what  its  predecessor 
had  done  and  doing  it  in  the  same  way.  When 
Greek  influences  began  to  decline,  society  also 
began  to  retrograde.  This  is  not  saying  that  the 
Greek  language  has  been  the  great  psychic  motor 
in  civilization,  but  only  that  the  spirit  of  inquiry, 
of  investigation,  the  quest  for  knowledge,  was  inaug- 
urated by  the  Greeks  and  by  them  only.  So  far  as 
the  language  is  concerned,  its  history  is  curious. 
The  Greeks  cared  nothing  for  any  language  but 
their  mother  tongue, — why,  need  not  concern  us 
here.  When  the  political  decline  of  Greece  had  set 
in,  its  literature  in  some  measure  passed  into  Italy, 
where  it  was  taken  up  by  the  Romans,  and  from 
about  200  B.  C.,  if  not  earlier,  every  educated  Ro- 
man spoke  Greek,  often  as  fluently  as  his  own  lan- 
guage. St.  Paul  wrote  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans 
in  Greek;  Diodorus,  of  Scicily,  composed  his  gene- 
ral History  in  the  same  language,while  the  emperor, 

57 


58  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

Marcus  Aurelius,  employed  it  as  the  most  fitting 
vehicle  to  bear  his  Meditations  to  posterity.  Roman 
writers  on  pedagogy  would  have  the  Greek  taught 
along  with  the  Latin;  and  this  seems  to  have  been 
the  general  practice  except  on  the  schools  of  the 
poor.  When  the  empire  went  to  pieces,  classical 
Latin  was  virtually  forgotten  even  in  Italy  and 
Greece.  Barbarism  reigned  everywhere.  The  past 
was  buried  under  the  miseries  of  the  present.  There 
were  no  schools.  Most  of  the  people  had  all  they 
could  do  to  keep  body  and  soul  together;  there 
was  neither  time  nor  means  nor  inclination,  to  de- 
vote to  anything  else.  This  condition  of  things 
continued  for  nearly  a  thousand  years,  with  a  few 
brief  periods  of  betterment.  In  the  course  of  time, 
however,  a  coterie  of  men  in  Italy  began  to  study 
Greek;  with  it  they  imbibed  the  Greek  spirit. 
Their  eyes  were  opened;  they  saw  what  they  had 
never  seen  before  though  it  was  all  around  them.  To 
these  men  the  discovery  was  like  receiving  an  addi- 
tional sense;  like  a  revelation  from  the  dead;  and 
they  soon  devoted  all  their  energies  to  making 
known  the  treasure  trove  to  the  western  world. 
Reuchlin,  one  of  the  first  Germans  to  master  the 
Greek  language,  maintained  that  nobody  could  be 
regarded  as  educated  who  knew  not  Greek.  A 
little  later  Melanchthon  took  the  same  ground. 
The  position  was  logical  for  their  day,  since  all  its 
knowledge  had  its  root  in  Greek.  In  the  same  era 


A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION  59 

Erasmus  was  the  protagonist  for  Greek  and  pro- 
bably did  more  to  promote  its  study  than  any  other 
man  before  or  since  his  time.  The  religious  awak- 
ening in  Germany  was  the  logical  sequel  to  the  in- 
tellectual awakening  in  Italy.  After  the  Protes- 
tant Revolution  had  in  a  measure  spent  its  force,  a 
decline  set  in,  one  of  the  results  of  which  was  that 
Europe  produced  very  few  distinguished  scholars 
during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries, 
though  the  language  was  never  without  its  valiant 
defenders.  In  England  in  the  time  of  Queen  Eliz- 
abeth even  women  studied  Greek.  It  was  during 
her  reign  that  George  Chapman  made  his  celebrated 
translation  of  Homer.  But  owing  to  the  decline  of 
interest  in  the  subject  with  which  it  deals,  no  sec- 
ond edition  was  called  for  until  nearly  two  hundred 
years  later.  During  all  this  time  Latin  was  dili- 
gently cultivated  and  by  use  of  the  Latin  translations 
of  the  Greek  masterpieces,  a  knowledge  of  Greek 
thought  was  kept  alive.  A  number  of  noted  edu- 
cationists, among  them  Herbart,  maintained  that 
Greek  ought  to  precede  Latin  in  a  course  of  liberal 
education.  The  theory  is  logical,  but  the  plan  is 
scarcely  practicable  for  several  reasons,  the  most 
weighty  being  the  difficulty  of  learning  its  pecu- 
lar  alphabet.  Another  serious  drawback  is  the 
number  of  dialects,  an  objection  that  cannot  be  made 
against  the  Latin. 


XX 

I  believe  that  in  our  day  very  few  even  of  those 
who  maintain  that  Greek  contributes  more  than  any 
other  discipline  to  a  liberal  education,  insist  that  its 
value  lies  wholly  or  even  chiefly  in  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  language.  Most  competent  judges 
admit  that  few  persons  can  take  the  time  to  acquire 
the  language  so  as  to  be  able  to  read  it  with  suffi- 
cient ease  to  give  it  much  culture  value.  The  point 
on  which  stress  is  laid  is  that  Greek  is  the  mainspring 
of  all  modern  literature  and  that  almost  all  the 
great  writers  have  been  more  or  less  influenced  by 
it;  not  necessarily  at  first  but  nevertheless  influ- 
enced. If  in  our  reading  we  come  across  a  reference 
to  the  Iliad,  or  the  Odyssey,  or  to  Marathon  and 
Salamis,  or  to  Socrates  and  Plato,  we  may  have  at 
hand  a  cyclopedia  that  will  tell  us  briefly  what 
these  names  mean.  But  how  much  better  to  read 
Homer  a  few  times,  or  Herodotus,  or  the  Reminis- 
cences of  Socrates  preserved  by  Xenophon!  If  we 
were  to  take  from  Shelley  and  Keats,  from  Brown- 
ing and  Tennyson,  to  mention  only  a  few  modern 
English  poets,  what  they  owe  to  the  Greek  literature, 
there  would  still  be  much  left,  it  is  true;  but  there 
would  be  large  gaps  in  their  writings. 


XXI 

Having  thus  briefly  set  forth  my  reasons  for  hold- 
ing that  history  and  literature  are  indispensable 
factors  in  a  liberal  education  I  add  one  other  sub- 
ject that  is  at  least  in  the  highest  degree  important, 
— this  is  Latin.  I  believe  that  Latin  ought  to  be 
an  obligatory  study  in  every  first-class  High  School, 
and  that  students  should  be  excused  from  pursuing 
it  only  in  very  rare  cases.  It  might  well  take  the 
place  of  any  one  or  two  or  even  more  subjects  that 
are  far  less  important  but  which  have  crowded  it 
out  wholly  or  in  part  because  they  are  supposed  to 
do  the  pupil  "more  good."  It  is  my  matured  con- 
viction that  three  or  four  years  of  Latin  contributes 
to  the  training  of  the  intellect  certain  factors  that 
nothing  else  can.  Of  course,  I  take  it  for  granted 
that  the  teaching  will  be  done  by  competent  instruct- 
ors. Though  the  student  gets  along  only  far  enough 
to  read  the  easiest  authors,  he  has  gained  a  lin- 
guistic point  of  view  which  can  not  be  acquired  by 
the  study  of  a  modern  language.  It  is  a  highly  val- 
uable accomplishment  to  be  able  to  use  the  English 
language  with  force  and  precision,  an  accomplish- 
ment which  the  best  Latinist  may  not  possess;  but 
the  latter  has  gained  a  certain  kind  of  insight  which  it 

61 


62  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

is  impossible  to  attain  from  the  one-language  point 
of  view.  Skill  in  the  use  of  the  vernacular  is  largely 
a  "gift",  at  least  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  generally 
comes  into  the  possession  of  persons  without  their 
knowing  how.  It  is  perhaps  not  much  the  less 
valuable  on  that  account,  at  least  so  far  as  produc- 
ing an  impression  is  concerned — even  the  Indians 
are  said  to  be  eloquent — but  it  is  not  necessarily  a 
mark  of  intelligence  or  of  knowledge.  In  such 
cases  it  is  out  of  the  fulness  of  the  heart  that  the 
mouth  speaketh,  not  out  of  fulness  of  information. 
The  modern  penny-a-liner  who  is  everywhere  in 
evidence  in  our  ephemeral  literature  can  spin  out 
picturesque  or  lurid  English  by  the  column  day 
after  day  on  subjects  of  which  he  knows  next  to 
nothing;  but  in  a  week,  if  not  sooner,  it  is  forgotten. 
This  is  what  is  euphemistically  called  ' 'journalism", 
— in  reality  it  is  the  art  of  making  a  short  story 
long,  or  of  making  words  supply  the  lack  of  ideas. 
To  be  fairly  master  of  a  modern  culture-language 
is  an  acquirement  by  no  means  easy  or  one  to  be 
underestimated;  but  such  a  language  deals  with 
modern  ideas  and  more  or  less  from  the  modern 
standpoint;  with  conditions  that  are  relatively  mod- 
ern: so  we  ha  vein  a  large  measure  over  again  what 
we  can  get  in  English.  At  any  rate,  when  we  are 
seeking  information  about  ancient  times  we  should 
read  read  ancient  books;  it  is  better  to  do  so  even 
if  we  have  to  depend  upon  translations.  We  have 


A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION  63 

many  romances  whose  authors  endeavor  to  portray 
the  life  of  the  men  and  women  of  old.  It  is  quite  safe 
to  say  that  all  are  more  or  less  false  to  the  realty. 
What  is  called  "romantic  love"  is  the  life-breath  of 
the  modern  novel.  This  is  especially  true  of  those 
written  for  English  readers.  The  sentiment  is 
almost  invariably  transferred  to  persons  who  are 
assumed  to  have  lived  two  milleniums  and  longer 
ago.  Yet  every  person  who  is  fairly  familiar  with 
ancient  life  knows  that  the  relations  of  the  sexes  with 
each  other  were  then  so  entirely  different  to  those 
existing  in  modern  times,  especially  among  the  Ger- 
manic races,  that  the  anachronism  is  fatal  to  the 
probabilities  of  the  story. 


XXII 

When  I  was  a  boy  and  later  a  young  man  I  used 
to  attend  literary  societies.  One  of  the  exercises 
was  always  a  debate.  A  question  more  than  once 
discussed  was  whether  the  pursuit  or  the  possession 
of  an  object  affords  the  largest  amount  of  pleasure. 
I  remember  scarcely  anything  of  what  was  said  upon 
the  topic;  but  I  came  to  recognize  later  that  if  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge  had  been  brought  within  the 
range  of  our  deliberations  there  would  have  been 
no  occasion  for  a  division  of  the  question:  here  pur- 
suit always  includes  possession.  The  seeker  for 
truth  is  not  only  receiving  pleasure  from  the  quest; 
he  is  constantly  coming  into  possession  also.  In 
other  words,  pursuit  and  possession  are  interchange- 
able terms  and  conditions.  Lessing  has  said  some- 
where that  if  God  were  to  give  him  the  choice  be- 
tween the  pursuit  and  the  possession  of  truth  he 
would  unhesitatingly  choose  the  former.  This  can 
only  mean  that  he  would  make  such  a  choice  if  the 
one  were  to  bar  out  the  other, — if  possession  were  to 
exclude  pursuit  and  be  a  finality.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  conceive  why  a  man  with  an  active  and  inquisi- 
tive mind  should  make  such  a  choice.  What  we 
call  ultimate  or  final  truths  will  probably  forever 

64 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  65 

elude  mortal  grasp.  But  between  these  and  what 
we  know  at  any  given  time  there  is  the  vast  and 
illimitable  domain  of  knowable  truths  which  we  can 
enlarge  as  long  as  we  live.  Even  if  we  never  dis- 
cover or  think  anything  except  what  some  great 
mind  has  already  known,  it  affords  us  a  high  degree 
of  satisfaction  to  find  it  out  for  ourselves.  Psycho- 
logical truths  unlike  the  application  of  the  laws  of 
the  physical  universe  to  the  moving  of  machinery 
do  but  slowly  become  the  property  of  all  mankind. 
Whatever  is  worth  careful  consideration  at  all  is 
worth  thinking  about  a  hundred,  yea,  a  thousand 
times.  It  is  only  by  the  exercise  of  our  intellectual 
faculties  upon  some  worthy  object  that  the  least 
gifted  among  us  can  approach  nearer  and  ever 
nearer  the  great  lights  among  men. 


XXIII 

As  I  have  used  the  term  higher,  and  as  it  is  always 
employed  in  the  discussion  of  educational  problems, 
it  will  not  be  amiss  to  pause  a  moment  to  consider 
in  what  sense  it  is  to  be  understood,  whether  in 
morals  or  in  pedagogy.  Generally  speaking,  a  good 
that  is  remote  is  higher  than  one  that  is  near.  We 
may  say  of  a  laborer  who  lays  by  a  portion  of  his 
earnings  for  future  needs  that  he  acts  upon  a  higher 
motive  than  one  who  consumes  all  his  earnings 
from  day  to  day.  The  reason  why  famines  period- 
ically afflict  such  countries  as  Russia  and  India  is 
that  the  peasants  never  think  of  putting  aside  any- 
thing for  those  years  when  there  may  be  a  failure 
of  crops.  Like  children  they  consume  almost  from 
day  to  day  all  the  soil  yields.  They  have  therefore 
not  advanced  beyond  the  thoughtless  and  improvi- 
dent stage  of  childhood.  While  it  is  true  that  the 
provident  spirit  may  degenerate  into  avarice  and 
niggardliness  and  lead  only  to  the  thought  of  hoard- 
ing without  a  legitimate  purpose,  the  latter  vice  is 
less  blameworthy  than  the  former.  Again,  he  who 
prefers  an  intellectual  and  moral  good  to  a  mere 
material  one  acts  from  a  higher  motive  than  does 
he  who  is  concerned  only  to  accumulate  material 

66 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  67 

wealth.  There  is  always  danger  that  material  gains 
will  be  made  at  the  expense  of  some  one  else,  and 
that  the  desire  to  lay  up  earthly  treasures  may 
degenerate  into  a  sort  of  insanity,  or  at  least  mono- 
mania. On  the  other  hand,  he  who  seeks  only  en- 
richment of  mind  not  only  deprives  no  one  else  of 
anything  but  makes  every  one  who  comes  within 
the  sphere  of  his  influence  to  some  extent  wiser  and 
is  very  likely  to  make  him  better.  While  it  can 
not  be  affirmed  without  qualification  that  the  best 
informed  persons  are  also  the  best,  it  is  true  as  a 
general  proposition.  Education  is  perhaps  as  much 
a  matter  of  the  emotions  and  the  will  as  of  the  in- 
tellect; yet  the  cultivation  of  the  intellect  through 
the  development  of  the  mind  as  a  whole  by  a  sys- 
tematic process,  has  a  tendency  to  bring  under 
control  both  the  emotions  and  the  will.  The  his- 
tory of  the  ancient  Greeks  proves  that  their  failure 
was  not  so  much  due  to  a  lack  of  judgment  as  to  a 
lack  of  self-control.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  among  the 
best  informed  nations  there  is  the  least  misery  and 
the  most  general  well-being.  Then  too,  few  people 
doubt  that  our  age  is  on  the  whole  better  off  than 
any  that  has  preceded  it;  on  the  whole  it  is  likewise 
better  informed  than  any  that  has  preceded  it.  If 
we  put  our  estimate  of  the  comparative  value  of 
knowlege  at  the  very  lowest  proportion  and  claim 
no  more  than  that  out  of  one  hundred  educated  men 
fifty  one  are  better  than  they  would  otherwise  be 


68  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

there  is  a  distinct  though  slight  upward  tendency, 
Albeit,  we  do  well  to  remember  that  there  is  an 
avarice  of  knowledge  as  well  as  of  money,  and  that 
the  former  may  be  almost  as  deleterious  to  the  com- 
munity as  the  latter.  A  mere  book -worm  is  of  little 
use  to  anybody;  though  it  must  be  said  that  the 
harm  he  does  to  others  and  to  himself  is  of  a  neg- 
ative sort.  He  is  a  non-producer  and  contributes 
nothing  to  the  welfare  of  the  state  that  protects  him. 
The  miser,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  detriment  not 
only  to  himself  but  likewise  to  his  fellow  men.  The 
redeeming  feature  of  his  case  is  that  he  must  die 
sometime  and  can  not  take  his  accumulations  with 
him.  When  they  come  into  other  hands  they  may 
be  controlled  by  wiser  heads. 


XXIV 

We  sometimes  meet  persons  who  dispose  of  the 
question  of  education  in  toto  by  citing  such  examples 
as  Washington  and  Lincoln.  They  tell  us  that 
these  men  were  both  great  and  good,  though  they 
knew  but  one  language  and  had  received  very  little 
systematic  instruction.  All  of  which  is  true.  But 
we  need  always  to  keep  in  mind  that  genius  and 
even  a  high  order  of  talent  goes  its  own  way  and 
can  not  be  used  as  a  guide  for  the  average  of  man- 
kind. England  has  produced  a  number  of  disting- 
uished women  in  almost  all  departments  of  intellect- 
ual activity;  yet  England,  until  very  lately,  did 
almost  nothing  for  the  education  of  girls.  A  highly 
endowed  mind  finds  its  food  and  stimulus  every- 
where; it  needs  but  little  incitement  or  assistance. 
If  we  take  the  examples  of  the  great  ones  of  the 
earth  for  our  guide  we  need  no  schools  at  all;  we 
have  only  to  let  every  one  educate  himself  as  best 
he  can.  That  has  been  the  way  of  the  world  until 
almost  our  own  time.  We  have  not  tried  long  what 
seems  to  us  the  better  course;  we  have  no  need 
therefore  as  yet  to  be  disheartened  with  results.  It 
is  not  only  possible  but  highly  probable  that  some 
persons  are  more  harmed  than  helped  by  being  held 

69 


70  A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION 

to  a  prescribed  curriculum;  but  no  rule  can  be  form- 
ulated that  takes  account  of  every  exceptional  case. 
It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  England  that  so  many 
of  her  sons  have  devoted  their  leisure  to  scientific 
and  historical  investigations.  George  Grote,  Charles 
Darwin,  Herbert  Spencer,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  E.  B. 
Tylor  and  Sir  Francis  Falton,  to  mention  only  a 
fevv,  have  not  been  teachers  in  the  usual  sense  of 
the  term;  yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  other  six 
men  living  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury could  be  named  who  have  discovered  and  cor- 
related a  larger  number  of  facts.  Some  of  them 
were  or  are  successful  men  of  affairs;  but  instead  of 
devoting  themselves  exclusively  to  business  they 
gave  much  of  their  time  and  thought  to  research  and 
to  the  dissemination  of  classified  knowledge.  We 
have  often  been  told  that  in  general  business  only 
three  men  in  a  hundred  are  successful  and  that  the 
other  ninety-seven  ultimately  fail.  Whether  this 
be  strictly  true  or  not  it  is  true  in  substance,  as  any 
one  can  verify  for  himself.  Sad  indeed  must  be  the 
reflection  of  the  man  who  when  he  approaches  the 
close  of  a  life  wholly  absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of  per- 
ishable things,  realizes  that  these  have  slipped  from 
his  grasp  almost  in  the  using.  On  the  contrary  he 
who  has  labored  for  the  good  of  men,  for  the  dis- 
semination of  truth,  for  the  mental  and  moral  cul- 


A   LIBERAL   EDUCATION 


71 


ture  of  himself  and  of  those  he  can  influence,  has 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  has  not  lived  in 
vain  though  the  earthly  treasures  he  leaves  behind 
be  but  few. 


XXV 

Unfortunately  the  education  called  liberal  has  in 
a  large  number  of  cases  failed  to  produce  in  fact  the 
results  and  effects  that  are  usually  claimed  for  it  in 
theory.  Many  distinguished  scholars  have  been 
men  of  bad  character  and  vicious  principles. 
Petrarch,  who  was  an  enthusiast  for  everything  of 
Greek  provenience,  was  a  man  of  low  morals  and 
his  friend  Boccaccio  was  if  possible  worse.  It  is  no 
excuse  for  them  that  low  morals  were  the  order  of 
the  day  and  that  nobody  was  the  less  thought  of  for 
leading  a  loose  life.  The  pitiful  career  of  Lord 
Bacon  is  familiar  to  everybody.  Richard  Porson, 
who  probably  knew  the  Greek  language  better  than 
any  other  Englishman  before  or  since  his  time,  was 
a  confirmed  sot.  William  Dindorf  the  editor  of 
innumerable  Greek  texts  was  the  embodiment  of 
greed.  And  so  through  a  long  list.  Some  of  the 
great  classical  scholars  might  spend  hours  over  a 
manuscript  trying  to  determine  whether  an  ancient 
author  had  written  sed  or  set,  or  an  ablative  in-  i  or 
-e,  but  they  would  not  hesitate  a  moment,  when  a 
suitable  opportunity  offered,  to  gratify  some  base 
instinct.  Not  a  few  of  them  were  guilty  of  acts  they 
would  have  condemned  in  a  Hottentot.  Just  as 

72 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  73 

some  physicians  habitually  violate  the  laws  of  health, 
so  some  men  of  great  abilities  or  of  great  erudition 
are  regardless  of  the  long  and  well  tried  maxims  of 
morality.  Neither  the  physician  nor  the  scholar 
would  commend  to  others  their  own  conduct;  but 
as  a  man's  works  are  the  surest  test  of  his  faith  their 
example  was  sometimes  more  powerful  than  their 
precepts.  Pitiful  indeed  is  it  when  it  must  be  said 
of  any  one,  "What  a  misfortune  that  such  a  well 
educated  man  should  set  such  a  pernicious  example." 


XXVI 

There  is  a  term  often  used  in  connection  with  lib- 
eral education  which  it  may  be  well  to  consider 
briefly  in  this  connection:  this  term  is  culture.  It 
designates  that  ineffable  charm  of  manner  that 
prompts  all  the  words  and  actions  of  some  people 
and  makes  them  such  delightful  companions.  It 
is  this  affability  that  was  so  highly  prized  by  the 
ancient  Greeks,  a  people  who  did  not  lay  much 
stress  upon  extensive  intellectual  attainments,  and 
which  Socrates  so  well  exemplified  in  the  Platonic 
Dialogues.  Though  it  would  perhaps  be  unjust  to 
say  that  a  person  can  be  liberally  educated  and  yet 
be  lacking  in  culture,  it  is  certainly  true  that  wide 
information  is  not  synonymous  with  culture  and  may 
exist  without  it.  Among  the  ancients  Plutarch  is 
conspicuous  for  extensive  knowledge  and  for  culture 
as  well.  This  happy  union  shines  forth  in  almost 
all  that  he  wrote.  Plato,  on  the  other  hand,  is  dis- 
tinguished for  the  profundity  of  his  thoughts  no  less 
than  for  urbaneness;  yet  compared  with  the  highest 
standards  of  our  day,  his  knowledge  was  relatively 
limited.  He  had  acquired  the  habit  of  mind  that 
prompted  him  always  to  draw  personal  profit  from 
everything  that  transpired  around  him.  We  are 

74 


A   LIBERAL    EDUCATION  75 

told  that  when  he  saw  anyone  do  a  foolish  or  un- 
kind deed  he  always  asked  himself  whether  he 
could  be  guilty  of  the  same.  In  this  way  he  made 
every  circumstance  of  his  life  contribute  to  his  own 
culture  and  moral  education.  So  we  may  say  of  a 
book,  that  it  is  of  no  value  to  us  if  it  does  not  con- 
vey a  lesson  that  we  feel  it  our  duty  and  our  gain 
to  make  our  own.  It  ought  either  to  place  before 
us  examples  to  follow,  or  to  avoid,  or  both.  No  book 
is  worth  reading  that  does  not  have  a  message  for 
us  personally;  that  does  not  make  us  wiser  as  well 
as  better  informed. 


XXVII 

I  often  meditate  upon  an  experience  I  had  about 
a  score  of  years  ago  in  the  State  of  Illinois.  Shortly 
after  my  train  had  left  Chicago  I  found  myself 
occupying  the  same  seat  with  an  elderly  gentleman 
whose  conversation  soon  revealed  him  as  a  unique 
character.  Though  he  belonged  to  the  class  of  so- 
called  self-made  men  he  was  wholly  free  from  the 
bumptiousness  and  self-conceit  generally  character- 
istic of  those  who  take  pride  in  believing  that  they 
owe  nothing  to  any  one  but  themselves. 

He  was  evidently  only  a  plain  farmer  who  had 
acquired  a  competence  by  thrift,  but  he  had  never 
allowed  material  interests  to  monopolize  his  thoughts. 
He  had  read  many  standard  books,  English  as  well 
as  translations  from  the  ancient  classics.  While  he 
did  not  always  express  himself  with  grammatical 
correctness  his  logic  was  excellent.  His  reading 
had  been  to  such  good  purpose  and  had  so  sharp- 
ened his  wits  that  he  knew  much  which  he  did  not 
get  from  books.  He  was  a  keen  observer  and  a 
lucid  interpreter  of  current  social  phenomena.  Yet 
he  was  modest  in  putting  forth  his  opinions;  always 
ready  to  admit  that  he  or  his  authorities  might  be 
in  error;  and  not  only  willing  but  eager  to  have  his 
views  controverted. 

76 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  77 

It  was  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  I 
parted  from  my  new  acquaintance  at  a  little  town 
called  Vermont.  Here  I  had  to  wait  for  a  train  on 
a  different  railroad.  It  happened  that  another  man 
was  in  the  same  predicament  with  myself.  We  two 
being  the  sole  occupants  of  the  waiting-room  natur- 
ally fell  into  conversation.  He  soon  informed  me 
that  he  was  president  of  some  educational  institu- 
tion farther  west;  that  he  received  a  larger  salary 
than  any  other  educator  in  his  State  and  much 
larger  than  the  Commissioner  of  Education  at  Wash- 
ington. He  strutted  back  and  forth  in  the  little 
waiting-room  like  a  turkey  cock  in  a  barnyard  and 
left  nothing  unsaid  that  he  thought  would  impress 
me  with  his  attainments  and  importance. 

All  the  while  I  was  mentally  comparing 
him  with  the  gentleman  from  whom  I  had  just 
parted;  and  the  comparison  was  decidedly  in  the 
latter's  favor.  The  former  was  insufferably  con- 
ceited; puffed  up  with  admiration  of  himself,  dicta- 
torial and  shallow.  He  knew  a  good  many  smart 
tricks,  which  knowledge  he  mistook  for  wisdom. 
What  he  did  not  know  was  not  worth  knowing; 
what  he  could  not  do  no  one  else  could.  Though 
he  was  a  graduate  of  a  reputable  college  and  called 
himself  an  educator,  he  knew  nothing  thoroughly 
and  had  not  the  slightest  conception  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  such  phrases  as  "original  investigation", 
"knowledge  at  first  hand". 


78  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

Yet  this  man  had  what  he  called  and  what 
doubtless  many  other  persons  would  call  a  lib- 
eral education,  while  the  former  had,  by  his  own 
confession,  no  education  at  all.  It  would  not  take 
a  discriminating  judge  long  to  decide  which  of  the 
twain  was  the  higher  sort  of  a  man,  or  which  one 
had  turned  his  knowledge  to  the  great  profit. 
One  of  them  had  the  form  of  a  liberal  education 
without  its  spirit;  the  other  its  spirit  without  its 
form. 


XXVIII 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  liberally  educated  man  to 
participate  to  some  extent  in  politics;  but  he  must 
not  be  a  politician  in  the  usual  acceptation  of  the 
term.  The  politician  is  one  who  seeks  office  for 
what  he  can  make  out  of  it;  he  pursues  higher  ob- 
jects only  so  far  as  they  promote  his  own  personal 
ends.  It  can  not  be  denied  that  a  man  may  be  a 
candidate  for  a  public  office  from  honorable  and 
disinterested  motives;  but  in  practice  this  is  the 
exception  much  oftener  than  the  rule.  If  knowl- 
edge does  not  promote  good  government,  better 
government  than  the  world  has  yet  seen,  the  whole 
trend  of  modern  thought  is  wrong.  Autocracies 
have  been  tried  and  found  wanting;  oligarchies 
have  proved  unsatisfactory;  limited  democracies 
equally  so.  The  latest  experiments,  those  now  be- 
ing tried  in  the  United  States,  in  France,  and  to 
some  extent  in  England,  with  democracies  pure  and 
simple,  complete  the  cycle  of  experiments  in  gov- 
ernments. Even  where  the  monarchical  form  is 
retained  the  people  are  entrusted  with  more  and 
more  power.  If  their  increasing  intelligence  does 
not  make  clear  their  duties  and  responsibilities 
nothing  else  will.  There  must  probably  always  be 

79 


80  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

more  or  less  corruption  in  government,  but  it  ought 
to  become  continually  less.  Government  can  be 
good  only  in  the  hands  of  good  men,  of  men  who 
prefer  the  common  welfare  to  their  own  individual 
profit.  A  high  standard  of  public  morality  and  a 
fair  degree  of  public  prosperity  are  impossible  with- 
out good  laws  impartially  administered.  It  is  true 
that  laws  alone  are  not  able  to  make  a  community 
moral,  but  it  is  only  through  law  that  public  opin- 
ion can  make  itself  permanently  felt.  Quiescent 
anarchism  like  that  preached  by  Tolstoi,  or  ultra 
individualism  such  as  Thoreau  tried  to  put  in  prac- 
tice, are  the  wildest  folly. 

A  people  that  adheres  tenaciously  to  its  past  and 
doggedly  refuses  to  take  account  of  what  is  going 
on  elsewhere  in  the  world  is  doomed  to  destruction 
or  to  hopeless  stagnation.  History  furnishes  abun- 
dant instances,  while  Russia,  Spain  and  China  are 
shining  examples  in  the  present,  if  that  can  be  said 
to  shine  which  is  chiefly  conspicuous  for  absence  of 
light.  But  to  ignore  the  past  and  to  attempt  to  be- 
gin at  the  beginning,  as  it  were,  is  almost  equally 
fatal.  The  work  of  the  radical  French  revolution- 
ists is  conspicuous  evidence  that  a  nation  suddenly 
thrown  out  of  its  routine  will  gradually  glide  back 
again.  Drastic  legislation  is  rarely  wise  legislation. 
It  is  only  when  the  future  is  intelligently  built  upon 
the  past  that  violent  relapses  do  not  occur. 

The  great  astronomer,  Kepler,  is  said  to  have  ex- 


A    LIBERAL   EDUCATION  81 

claimed  in  the  extasy  of  delight  after  he  had  made 
his  great  discovery:  "  Oh  God,  I  think  thy  thoughts 
after  thee."  He  thus  but  expresses  the  joy  that 
comes  to  every  serious -minded  person  when  he  is 
engaged  in  the  search  for  and  discovery  of  truth. 
It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  nobler  enjoyment. 
It  is  moreover  the  sort  of  enjoyment  that  only 
minds  of  the  finest  texture  can  experience.  Nor  is 
it  blunted  by  the  reflection  that  it  has  been  pur- 
chased at  the  expense  of  anyone  else.  Yet  it  would 
be  incorrect  to  say  that  it  fills  the  mind  more  com- 
pletely than  does  the  satisfaction  of  the  man  who 
has  made  a  great  deal  of  money  by  a  trick,  or  a 
sharp  bargain,  or  a  successful  mercantile  transac- 
tion. The  moral  standard  of  many  men  is  deter- 
mined by  the  statute  law.  For  them  everything  is 
admissable  that  does  not  put  them  in  the  criminal 
calendar.  The  intrinsic  moral  merits  and  aspects 
of  any  particular  transaction  have  no  interest  for 
them.  With  them  conscience  is  a  dead  faculty, 
when  there  is  a  question  of  money  or  power.  The 
vulture  delights  in  carrion  because  it  satisfies  a  car- 
nal appetite.  That  such  food  is  abhorred  even  by 
clean  beasts  is  of  no  concern  to  the  unclean  bird. 
The  hawk  does  not  spare  the  dove  because  of  its 
beauty,  no  more  will  the  man  spare  his  victim 
whose  sole  aim  is  to  accumulate  pelf.  He  has  but 
one  kind  of  appetite  and  it  must  be  gratified  when 
a  victim  can  be  found.  I  know  that  writers  of  fie- 


82  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

tion  and  moralists  tell  us  that  a  feeling  of  shame  ac- 
companies a  base  act.  I  fear  it  is  often  not  so.  I 
fear  the  words  of  Roinola  do  not  always  hold  good 
when  she  says:  "  And  so,  my  Lillo,  if  you  mean  to 
act  nobly  and  seek  to  know  the  best  that  God  has 
put  within  the  reach  of  men,  you  must  learn  to  fix 
your  mind  on  that  end,  and  not  on  what  will  hap- 
pen to  you  because  of  it.  And  remember,  if  you 
were  to  choose  something  lower,  and  make  it  the 
rule  of  your  life  to  seek  your  own  pleasure  and  es- 
cape from  what  is  disagreeable,  calamity  might 
come  just  the  same;  and  it  would  be  calamity  fall- 
ing on  a  base  mind,  which  is  the  one  form  of  sorrow 
that  has  no  balm  in  it,  and  that  may  well  make  a 
man  say,  '  It  would  have  been  better  for  me  if  I  had 
never  been  born.'  ' 

On  the  other  hand,  we  do  well  to  remember  the 
averment  about  the  proportion  of  men  in  general 
business  who  fail  that  is  given  in  XXIV,  a  condition 
of  things  that  gave  John  Ruskin  great  satisfaction. 
We  are  on  insecure  ground  when  we  undertake  to 
measure  the  feelings  of  our  fellow  men.  As  there 
are  no  two  faces  precisely  alike,  so  there  are  prob- 
ably no  two  minds  that  correspond  in  every  part- 
But  the  testimony  of  the  many  who  regretted  a  life 
devoted  to  sordid  pursuits  is  abundant,  and  in  the 

main  agrees  with  that  of  Wolsey: 

"Had  I  but  served  my  God  with  half  the  zeal 
I  served  my  king,  he  would  not  in  mine  age 
Have  left  me  naked  to  mine  enemies." 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  83 

There  is  thus  a  strong  probability  that  Romola 
was  right.  How  different  were  the  reflections  of 
John  Wesley  when  he  was  nearing  the  end  and 
looked  back  over  a  long  life  unselfishly  given  to 
the  service  of  his  fellow  men:  "  The  best  of  all  is, 
God  is  with  us."  Nathan  Hale  under  the  shadow 
of  the  gallows  regretted  that  he  had  but  one  life  to 
give  his  country.  Even  Napoleon,  the  greatest 
criminal  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  in  exile  he 
had  the  leisure  to  reflect  upon  his  career,  tried  to 
persuade  himself  and  perhaps  succeeded  in  persuad- 
ing his  friends,  that  he  had  the  good  of  France  at 
heart  more  than  his  own  aggrandizement.  There 
is  something  in  man's  nature  which  makes  him  feel 
that  a  life  of  selfishness  is  an  unworthy  life.  "We 
may  not  and  often  do  not  win  the  gratitude  of  those 
for  whom  we  have  made  many  sacrifices,  but  we 
feel  that  it  is  better  to  have  deserved  and  not  to 
have  received  than  not  to  have  deserved. 

In  an  age  when,  and  especially  in  a  country 
where,  almost  everything  is  supposed  to  be  within 
the  reach  of  those  who  have  money  and  the  will  to 
use  it,  and  where  the  opportunities  for  gain  are 
abundant,  many  people  naturally  come  to  attribute 
greater  influence  to  wealth  than  it  possesses.  They 
also  assume  that  this  age  is  more  venal  than  any 
that  has  preceded  it.  The  evidence  does  not  justify 
such  a  conclusion.  There  has  never  been  a  time 
when  the  humane  sentiments  were  more  potent  and 


84:  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

when  so  much  money  was  devoted  to  enter- 
prises of  a  philanthropic  or  educational  or  aesthetic 
character.  Much  injustice  still  prevails,  but  never 
so  little  as  at  present.  Those  who  are  wronged  or 
imagine  themselves  wronged,  at  once  make  known 
to  the  world  their  grievances,  while  until  recently 
they  could  only  suffer  in  silence.  Old  Testament 
history  is  not  lacking  in  evidence  as  to  the  baseness 
of  men;  nor  are  examples  wanting  in  the  New.  The 
Greeks  were  not  only  venal  as  private  individuals, 
but  many  of  them  were  always  ready  to  sell  their 
country.  The  love  of  luxury  and  the  love  of 
ease  destroyed  the  Roman  empire.  In  almost  every 
country  of  Europe  until  recently,  justice  was  pur- 
chasable, if  legal  decisions  thus  obtained  can  be 
called  justice.  The  custom  is  not  yet  outgrown  in 
all  of  them.  There  have  never  been  so  many  peo- 
ple devoting  themselves  to  the  good  of  men  without 
hope  of  earthly  reward;  there  have  never  been  so 
many  agencies  in  operation  for  aiding  the  destitute 
and  unfortunate;  there  has  never  been  so  much 
done  to  give  every  one  a  chance  as  in  our  day. 
Before  the  end  of  the  present  generation  the  craze 
for  wealth  will,  to  some  extent,  have  spent  itself. 
Its  successors  will  have  learned  that  money  cannot 
purchase  the  highest  good  within  the  reach  of  man- 
kind. There  are  many  to-day  who  have  not  bowed 
the  knee  to  Baal;  who  do  not  worship  the  golden 
calf;  and  the  number  will  increase  as  the  years  go  by. 


A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION  85 

To  him  who  shall  ask — and  the  question  is  often 
asked  in  some  form — What  is  the  profit  of  all  this  ? 
What  is  the  gain  of  knowing  as  much  as  possible, 
and  of  doing  the  best  one  can  in  the  largest  way  ? 
I  can  only  reply:  There  is  no  answer  for  you!  The 
motive  that  prompts  the  question  is  abundant  evi- 
dence that  no  answer  can  be  given.  We  might  as 
well  try  to  answer  a  fish  that  should  ask  what  is  the 
use  of  wings  or  feathers,  since  it  lives  in  an  element 
where  these  bodily  accessories  would  not  only  be 
useless  but  a  positive  disadvantage.  We  may  as 
well  inquire,  What  is  the  use  of  complete  living  ? 
Such  inquiries  usually  have  behind  them  a  sneer 
at  all  magnanimous  aims  and  are  prompted  by  the 
disposition  to  get  out  of  life  as  much  as  possible  and 
to  put  into  it  as  little  as  possible. 

But  to  those  who  believe  with  Milton  that  every 
citizen  ought  to  be  a  minister  of  that  "complete  and 
generous  education  which  fits  a  man  to  perform 
justly,  skilfully  and  magnaminously,  all  the  offices, 
both  public  and  private,  in  peace  and  in  war,"  the 
message  here  proclaimed  will  not  have  been  spoken 
in  vain.  With  a  slight  change  in  the  words  of  the 
Savior  I  may  say,  If  ye  will  do  my  works  ye  shall 
know  my  doctrine  whether  it  be  from  above.  If  ye 
will  seek  the  highest  intellectual  and  moral  attain- 
ments ye  shall  know  that  there  is  great  good  in  so 
doing.  Other  answer  there  is  none.  Try  me  and 
see  if  I  am  good. 


86  A    LIBERAL    EDUCATION 

We  must  taste  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  evil  whether 
we  will  or  no;  let  us  then  partake  voluntarily  and 
freely  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  good,  the  leaves 
whereof  are  for  the  healing  of  the  nations.  Then 
shall  we  think  grandly,  live  nobly,  and  pass  peace- 
fully away. 


APPENDIX. 

Several  of  the  world's  great  libraries  contain  more 
than  a  million  volumes.  If  now  we  consider  that 
in  order  to  read  two  volumes  of  average  size  per 
week  a  person  can  not  do  much  else,  and  that  at 
this  rate  it  would  require  fifty  years  to  read  five 
thousand  volumes,  we  are  able  to  realize  to  some 
extent  the  magnitude  of  such  a  collection  of  books. 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  we  reflect  that  many  of 
them  are  editions  of  the  same  work;  or  are  transla- 
tions of  the  same  original;  or  are  treatises  on  the 
same  subject;  or  are  mere  commentaries,  we  begin 
to  comprehend  that  the  contents  of  such  a  library 
are  not  commensurate  in  value  with  their  bulk. 

It  must  be  plain  moreover  that  every  serious- 
minded  person  who  reads  for  culture  needs  a  guide 
through  a  labyrinth  of  this  sort:  the  more  so  as  the 
world's  literary  output  keeps  on  increasing  at  the 
rate  of  some  tens  of  thousands  of  volumes  a  year. 
It  is  well  then  to  remember  the  proverb:  "Age  is  a 
recommendation  in  four  things — old  wood  to  burn, 
old  wine  to  drink,  old  friends  to  trust,  and  old  books 
to  read."  One  exception  should  however  be  made: 
in  science:  it  is  generally  safe  to  assume  that  the 
latest  books  are  the  most  worth  reading. 

87 


88  APPENDIX 

I  have  been  led  to  prepare  the  following  list  in 
the  hope  that  it  may  be  found  useful  by  a  few  per- 
sons who  feel  the  need  of  a  guide  to  what  is  the 
best,  or  at  least  superlatively  good,  in  the  world  of 
letters.  It  would  be  preposterous  to  maintain  that 
any  list  is  absolutely  and  unconditionally  the  best; 
but  it  is  entirely  within  reason  to  claim  for  the  fol- 
lowing that  another  equally  representative  list 
could  not  be  drawn  that  should  omit  even  the 
larger  part  of  the  titles  it  includes. 

Some  of  thes  books  "are  no  longer  read,"  to  use 
the  current  phrase.  But  that  is  no  reason  why  they 
should  not  be  read.  Many  of  them  occupy  an  im- 
portant place  in  the  intellectual  development  of  the 
race  and  of  the  nation.  Childhood  and  youth  are 
just  as  much  an  integral  part  of  human  life  as  ma- 
ture manhood  and  ripe  old  age.  He  is  but  a  poor 
sort  of  a  creature  who  can  say,  "I  am  not  interested 
in  children;"  just  as  he  is  the  narrowest  sort  of  a 
bigot  who  is  not  interested  in  anybody  but  himself 
or  his  own  age  or  in  anything  that  can  not  or  will 
not  minister  to  his  own  selfishness.  Far  nobler  is 
the  sentiment  put  into  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  char- 
acters by  Terence:  "I  am  a  man  and  do  not  con- 
sider anything  that  pertains  to  man  alien  to  me." 
The  theory  is  still,  as  it  always  has  been,  far  ahead 
of  the  practice;  but  this  only  shows  for  the  ten 
thousandth  time  that  literature  has  always  illum- 
ined the  path  upon  which  life  should  travel  if  it  is 


APPENDIX  89 

to  reach  the  goal  of  its  divine  destiny?  One  thing 
is  absolutely  certain:  upon  every  volume  in  the  list 
the  stamp  of  approval  has  been  placed  by  many 
competent  judges;  in  the  great  major  of  cases  by 
generations  of  competent  judges.  If  not  all  the 
volumes  are  ethically  the  best,  they  at  least  repre- 
sent what  we  would  have  been  most  interested  in. 
The  intending  reader  even  though  he  selects  in  a 
somewhat  haphazard  way  can  therefore  not  go  amiss. 

Addison's  Reger  de  Coverly. — Akers'  History  of 
South  America. — Aeschylus,  The  Oresteia. — 
Alarcon's  Three  Cornered  Hat;  The  Scandal. 
Arnold's  Light  of  Asia. — Arnold's  Literature 
and  Dogma;  Essays  in  Criticism.  — Ariosto's 
Orlando  Furioso. — Aristotle's  Organum;  Rhet- 
oric and  Poetic;  Ethics;  Politics. — Aristopha- 
nes' Comedies,  Frere's  Translation. — Atkinson,s 
Forty  Years  in  a  Moorland  Parish. — Arabian 
Nights. — Augustin's  Confessions;  The  City  of 
God. — Austen's  Pride  and  Prejudice;  Sense 
and  Sensibility. — Auerbach's  Black  Forest  Vil- 
lage Tales. 

Bain's  or  Maudsley's  Body  and  Mind. — Bailey's 
Festus. — Bacon's  Novum  Organum. — Bage- 
hot's  Physics  and  Politics. — Balzac's  Chouans; 
The  Country  Doctor;  Pere  Goriot;  Eugene 
Grandet. — Balfour's  Foundation  of  Belief. — 
Beowulf. — Berkeley's  Human  Knowledge. — 


90  APPENDIX 

Belcher's  Mutineers  of  the  Ship  Bounty. — 
Becker's  Gallus;  Charicles. — Beckford's  Vathek. 
— Bentley's  Phalaris. — Bickersteth's  Yesterday, 
To-day  and  Forever. — The  Bible. — Bjornsen's 
Sigurd  Slembe. — Blackmore's  Lorna  Doone, — 
Blackstone's  Commentaries.* —  Boccacio's  De- 
cameron, in  part. — BoswelPs  Life  of  Johnson. 
— Borrow's  Bible  in  Spain. — Boissier's  Cicero 
and  his  Friends. — Boethius'  Consolations  of 
Philosophy.  — Bryant's  Poems. — Mrs.  Brown- 
ing's Aurora  Leigh;  Sonnets  from  the  Portu- 
guese.— Eobert  Browning's  Red  Cotton  Night 
Cap  Country;  Paracelsus  and  some  shorter 
Poems;  The  Ring  and  the  Book.  —  Brown's 
Edgar  Huntley. — Browne's  Artemus  Ward, 
his  Book. — Browne's  (Sir  Thomas)  Works,  in 
part — Bronte's  Jane  Eyre;  Wuthering  Heights,  f 
— Bryce's  Holy  Roman  Empire. — Burton's 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy. — Butler's  Analogy  of 
Religion. — Bulwer's  Last  Days  of  Pompeii; 
Harold;  Eugene  Aram.  — Bunyan's  Pilgrim's 

*  Undoubtedly  the  most  influential  treatise  on  English  law  ever 
written,  in  spite  of  some  grave  defects.  When  we  consider  that 
all  progress  is  based  on  legislation  or  is  closely  connected  with  it, 
and  that  as  Hallam  says,  ' '  We  literally  live  amid  the  snares  and 
pitfalls  of  the  law,"  it  must  be  regarded  as  strange  that  so  few 
people  think  it  worth  while  to  acquaint  themselves  with  its  fun 
damental  principals.  See  also  Kent. 

fCompetent  critics  have  pronounced  this  the  most  powerful 
book  ever  written  by  a  woman. 


APPENDIX  91 

Progress. — Burnett's  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy. — 
Burke's  Speeches,  in  part. — Burney's  Evelina. 
— Burrough's  Pepacton. — Buckle's  History  of 
Civilization. — Burns'  Poems,  in  part. — Byron's 
Poems,  in  part,  but  especially  Childe  Harold. 
Caesar's  Commentaries. — Carroll's  Alice's  Advent- 
ures in  Wonderland. — Carlyle's  French  Revo- 
lution; Sartor  Resartus;  Past  and  Present; 
Essays.  —  Cable's  Old  Creole  Days;  The 
Grandissimes. — Camoen's  Lusiad. — Campbell's 
Pleasures  of  Hope;  Gertrude  of  Wyoming. — 
Cervantes'  Don  Quixtoe.  —  Chateaubriand's 
Genius  of  Christianity;  Atala,  Rene. — Cellini's 
Autobiography. — Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales. 
— Chesterfield's  Letters. — Cicero  De  Officiis. — 
Mrs.  Charles'  The  Schoenberg-Cotta  Family. — 
Clemens'  (Mark  Twain)  Roughing  It;  Innocents 
Abroad. — Coleridge's  Poems,  in  part. — Cow- 
per's  Task  and  Shorter  Poems. — Cooper's  Spy; 
The  Pioneers;  The  Pilot.— Crane's  Red  Badge 
of  Courage. — Creasy 's  Fifteen  Decisive  Battles. 
— Cooke's  New  Chemistry. — Cook's  Voyages. 
— Corneille's  L'illusion  comique,  Cid,  Horace, 
Cinna,  Polyeucte — Cockton's  Valentine  Vox. 
— Conway's  Wandering  Jew;  Autobiography. 
Collins'  Woman  in  White. — Collins'  Odes. — 
Craik's  John  Halifax. — Curtis'  The  Potiphar 
Papers;  Prue  and  I. — Culture  Demanded  by 
Modern  Life. — Cummins'  The  Lamplighter. 


92  APPENDIX 

Dana's  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast. — Dante's  Divina 
Commedia. — Darwin's  Origin  of  Species — 
Daudet's  Tarascon;  Le  Nabab. — Day's  Sanford 
and  Merton — De  Quincey's  Opium  Eater; 
Miscellaneous  Essays. — Descartes'  Discourse  on 
Method. — Demosthenes  and  Aeschines  On  the 
Crown. — Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe. — De  Vigny's 
Cinq  Mars. — De  Stael's  Germany;  Corinne. — 
Dickens'  Bleak  House;  Martin  Chuzzlewit; 
Oliver  Twist;  David  Copperfield.  —  Diogenes 
Laertius.  — Disraeli's  Coningsby;  Lothair. — 
Disraeli's  Curiosities  of  Literature. — Doyle's 
Micah  Clarke;  Sherlock  Holmes.  —  Dryden's 
Mac  flecknoe;  the  Hind  and  the  Panther;  Se- 
lections from  Shorter  Poems.  —  Drummond's 
Tropical  Africa. — Draper's  Intellectual  Develop- 
ment of  Europe. — Dumas'  The  Lady  with  the 
Camelias. — Dumas'  the  Count  of  Monte  Cristo; 
The  Three  Musketeers. — Dyer's  Gods  of  Greece. 
— Du  Maurier's  Trilby. — Dymond's  Essays. 

Ebers'  Uarda;  An  Egyptian  Princess. — Edgeworth's 
Helen;  The  Absentee. — Edwards  on  the  Will. 
— Eliot's  Middlemarch;  Romola;  Silas  Marner. 
— Eggleston's  Hoosier  Schoolmaster. — Elson's 
History  of  the  United  States.  (Probably  the 
best  one  volume  history.) — Epictetus'  Morals. 
— Emerson's  Essays. — Erckmann-Chatrian,  Le 
Conscrit;  Waterloo;  Madame  Therese- Euripides' 
Medea,  the  two  Iphigeneia,  the  Phoenicians, 


APPENDIX  93 

Alkestis,  Hecabe,  Helena,  Electra,  Hercules 
furens,  Ion. — Evans'  Evolutionary  Ethics. 

Finlay's  History  of  Greece,  vols.  I.  II.  VI.  VII. — 
Fenelon's  Telemachus.  —  Fitzgerald's  Omar 
Khayyam.  — Fielding's  Tom  Jones.  —  Fiske's 
Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy.  —  Flaubert's 
Salambo;  Mme  Bovary. — Ford's  Janice  Mere- 
dith; the  Hon.  Peter  Stirling. — Fox's  Journal. 
— Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs. — Franklin's  Auto- 
biography. — Froissart's  Chronicles. — Fouque's 
Undine. — Frederic's  Theron  Ware. — Freytag's 
Debit  and  Credit;  the  Lost  Manuscript. — 
Fuller's  Holy  Living  and  Holy  Dying. — 
Fuller's  The  Cliff  Dwellers. 

Galton's  Hereditary  Genius. — Galdos'  Dona  Perfecta. 
Gautier's  Romance  of  a  Mummy;  Cleopatra's 
Nights. — Gardiner's  Cromwell's  Place  in  His- 
tory.— Gask ell's  Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte. — 
George's  Progress  and  Poverty. — Gindeley's 
History  of  the  Thirty  Years  War. — Gibbon's 
Decline  and  Fall. — Gneist's  English  Constitu- 
tisn. -Goethe's  Sorrows  of  Werther;  Goetz;  Wil- 
helm  Meiter;  Autobiography;  Faust;  Reineke 
Fuchs;  West-easterly  Divan. — Godkin's  Mod- 
ern Democracy. — Goldsmith's  Deserted  Village 
and  Traveller;  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield. — Grant's 
Memoirs. — Greeley's  American  Conflict. — Gro- 
tius'  De  jure  belli  et  pacis. — Green's  Short  His- 
tory of  the  English  People. — Gray's  Poems. — 


94  APPENDIX 

Grote's  Greece. — Guizot's  History  of  Civiliza- 
tion, more  particularly  the  first  volume. 

Hawthorne's  House  of  Seven  Gables;  the  Scarlet 
Letter;  the  Marble  Faun. — Haeckel's  History 
of  Creation. — Hamerton's  Human  Intercourse; 
the  Intellectual  Life; — Harris'  Uncle  Remus. — 
Hardy's  Tess  of  d'Urbevilles. — Hardy's  Man- 
ual of  Buddhism. — Harte's  Luck  of  Roaring 
Camp;  Early  Tales  and  Tales  of  the  Argonauts. 
Hay's  Castilian  Days;  Hay  and  Nicolai's  Life 
of  Lincoln. — Harper's  Code  of  Hammurabi. — 
Heine's  Pictures  of  Travel  and  Songs. — Hero- 
dotus. —  Hilprecht's  Explorations  in  Bible 
Lands. — Hippocrates'  Works. — Hobbes'  Levia- 
than.— Holland's  Bittersweet  and  Kathrina. — 
Howells'  Their  Wedding  Journey;  Lady  of 
Aroostook;  the  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham. — Hogg's 
the  Queens  Wake. — Holmes'  Poems,  in  part; 
Elsie  Venner;  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table; 
the  Guardian  Angel.  —  Homer's  Iliad  and 
Odyssey. — Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity. — 
Hughes'  Tom  Brown's  School  Days. — Hume, 
by  T.  H.  Huxley. — Hugo's  Les  Miserables; 
Toilers  of  the  Sea;  Notre  Dame  de  Paris. — 
Hume's  Essays;  History  of  England.— Hum- 
boldt's  Cosmos. 

Ibsen's  Dramas,  in  part. — Irving's  Knickerbocker's 
History  of  New  .York;  Sketch  Book;  Tales  of  a 
Traveller;  Astoria. 


APPENDIX  95 

James'  Americans;  Europeans. — James'  Varieties  of 
Keligious  Experience.-Mrs.  Jackson's  Ramona; 
a  Century  of  Dishonor. — Jebb's  Homer. — Jew- 
ett's  Deephaven. — Jerrold's  Mrs.  Caudle's  Cur- 
tain Lectures. — Jokai's  Black  Diamonds. — 
Josephus'  Wars  of  the  Jews. — Jonson's  (Ben) 
Dramas,  in  part. — The  Junius  Letters. — The 
Satires  of  Juvenal. 

Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  of  Practical  Rea- 
son.— The  Kalevala. — Keats'  Poems. — Thomas 
a  Kempis;  The  Imitation  of  Christ.  (This  is  gen- 
erally held  to  be  the  most  widely  read  book 
next  to  the  Bible.)-Kent's  Commentaries.  (Of 
these  commentaries  it  has  been  said  more  than 
once  that  they  have  exercised  a  more  potent  in- 
fluence on  our  national  character  than  any 
other  work.) — Keble's  Christian  Year. — Ken- 
nedy's Swallow  Barn;  Horseshoe  Robinson. — 
Kennan's  Tent  Life  in  Siberia. — Kingsley's 
Hypatia;  Alton  Locke.  —  Kipling's  Captains 
Courageous. — Kidd's  Social  Evolution. — Kirk's 
Life  of  Charles  the  Bold.— The  Koran. 

Landor's  Imaginary  Conversations,  in  part. — La- 
fontaine's  Fables. — Lamb's  Essays. — La  Roche- 
foucauld's Maxims. — Layamon's  Brut. — Lang- 
land  Piers  the  Plowman. — Lanfrey's  Napoleon. 
— Lanier's  Poems. — Laplace's  Mechanism  of 
the  Heavens. — Letters  of  Obscure  Men. — Less- 
ing's  Laokoon;  Nathan  the  Sage;  Minna. — Le 


96  APPENDIX 

Sage's  Gil  Bias. — Lewes'  Life  of  Goethe;  History 
of  Philosophy. — Lecky's  History  of  England  in 
the  18th  Century;  History  of  European  Morals; 
Democracy  and  Liberty. — Lever's  Charles 
O'Malley;  Rory  O'Moore. — Lingard's  History 
of  England. — Livy's  History  of  Rome,  first  half. 
Locke  on  the  Understanding. — Lowell's  Poems; 
Among  my  Books. — Longfellow's  Poems,  in 
part;  Hyperion. — Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott. — 
Lover's  Handy  Andy.  — Lloyd's  Wealth  vs. 
Commonwealth. — Lounsbury's  History  of  the 
English  Language. — Lubbock's  Origin  of  Civ- 
ilization.— Lucian,  Selections  from. — Lucretius 
On  The  Nature  of  Things. 

Malthus'  Essay  on  Population. — Macaulay's  History 
of  England;  Selected  Essays  and  Lyrics. — 
Marx's  Capital. — Mather's  Magnalia  Christi. — 
Mackenzie's  Man  of  Feeling.  —  Martineau's 
Hour  and  Man. — Manzoni's  The  Betrothed. — 
Maine's  Ancient  Law;  Early  Law  and  Custom. 
— Mallock's  New  Republic. — Marry at's  Master- 
man  Ready. —  Mahan's  Sea  Power;  Life  of 
Nelson. — Maspero's  Egypt  and  Chaldea. — The 
Mabinogion;  Lady  Guest's  Edition. — Masson's 
Life  of  Milton. — Meri vale's  History  of  Rome. 
Meline's  Mary  Queen  of  Scots. — Meditations  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  —  Michelet's  L' Amour. — 
Miller's  My  School  and  Schoolmasters. — Mill's 
or  Sigwart's  Logic;  Autobiography. — Milton's 


APPENDIX  97 

Paradise  Lost  and  minor  poems;  the  Areopigi- 
tica. — Morgan's  Ancient  Society.  —  Morley's 
Gladstone;  Voltaire;  Diderot. — More's  Coelebs 
in  Search  of  a  Wife. — Montesquieu's  Spirit  of 
Laws. — More's  Utopia.-Mommsen's  History  of 
Rome. — Montaigne's  Essays. — Moore's  Poems 
in  part. — Morris'  Earthly  Paradise. — Moliere's 
Le  Misanthrope,  Tartuffe,  L'  Avare,  Les  femmes 
savantes,  Les  precieuses  ridicules.  — Mueller's 
Science  of  Thought. 

Newman's  Apologia  pro  vita  sua. — Newton's  Prin- 
cipia. — The  Nibelungen  Lied. — (There  is  a 
good  translation  by  Lettsom,  but  probably  that 
which  is  on  the  whole  the  most  satisfctory  is 
the  recent  one  by  Needier). 

Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  in  part. — Ossian's  Poems. 

Pascal's  Thoughts. — Paine's  Age  of  Reason.-Pater's 
Plato  and  Platonism;  Marius  the  Epicurean.- 
Patmore's  Angel  of  the  House. — The  Paston 
Letters. — Petrarch's  Sonnets. — Pearson's  Gram- 
mar of  Science. — Pindar's  Odes. — Plautus' 
Plays. — Plato's  Apology,  Crito  and  Phaedo; 
The  Republic. — (After  reading  these  three  dia- 
logues in  order  to  get  an  idea  of  Plato's  man- 
ner, though  the  first  named  is  not  properly  a 
dialogue,  most  persons  will  get  a  clearer  insight 
into  the  doctrines  of  Plato  from  Jowett's  Anal- 
yses and  Introduction,  than  from  a  translation  - 
of  the  text). — Poe's  Poems;  Selections  from  his 


98  APPENDIX 

Tales. — Plutarch's  Lives. — Pope's  Poems,  in 
part. — Polybius'  History. — Porter's  Scottish 
Chiefs;  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw. 

Quintilian's  Institute  of  Oratory. 

Rabelais'  Works. — Racine's  Britannicus,  Mithridate, 
Iphigenie,  Esther,  Athalie. — Reade's  Peg 
Woffington;  Hard  Cash;  Griffith  Gaunt. — Re- 
nan's  Life  of  Jesus. — Richter's  Titan;  Flower, 
Fruit  and  Thorn  Pieces;  Hesperus. — Richard- 
son's Pamela. — Roe's  Barriers  Burned  Away. 
- — Rogers'  The  Economic  Interpretation  of  His- 
tory.— Rousseau's  Confessions;  Emile. — Rus- 
sell's The  Wreck  of  the  Grosvenor. — Rydberg's 
Last  Athenian. — Ruskin's  Modern  Painters. 

Sachs'  History  of  Botany. — Saintine's  Picciola. — 
Saint  Simon's  Memoirs  — Saint  Pierre's  Paul 
and  Virginia. — Sallust's  Works. — Sand's  (Geo) 
Indiana;  Consuelo;  Lelia. — Sappho's  Frag- 
ments.-Mme  Sevigne's  Detters.-Schopenhauer's 
World  as  Will. — Scott's  Waver ly;  Guy  Man- 
nering;  Rob  Roy;  Quentin  Durward;  Kenil- 
worth;  Poems. — Schiller's  Poems  and  Dramas. 
— Seneca's  Morals. — Seeley's  Expansion  of 
England;  Life  of  Stein. — Shakspere's  Dramas, 
in  part. — Shaftsbury's  Characteristics. — Shep- 
pard's  Charles  Auchester. — Shelley's  Poems. — 
Mrs.  Shelley's  Frankenstein.-Sidney's  Arcadia. 
— Sienkiewics'  Without  Dogma;  With  Fire  and 
Sword;  The  Deluge:  Pan  Michael. — Short- 


APPENDIX  99 

house's  John  Inglesant. — Smiles'  Self  Help. — 
Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations. — Smith's  (Horace 
and  James)  Rejected  Addresses. — Smith's  (Sid- 
ney) Essays. — Sophocles'  Dramas. — Smollett's 
Roderick  Random. — Spencer's  First  Principles; 
Principles  of  Sociology;  Education;  Ethics. — 
Spenser's  Fairy  Queen. — Spinoza's  Ethics. — 
Spielhagen's  Hammer  and  Anvil. —  Stanley's 
Dark  Continent. — Stirling's  Secret  of  Hegel. — 
Stevenson's  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde;  Kid- 
napped.— Sterne's  Sentimental  Journey;  Tris- 
tram Shandy. — Mrs.  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin. — Stephens'  Christianity  and  Islam. — 
Stepniak,  Underground  Russia. — Strauss'  Life 
of  Jesus. — Sue's  Mysteries  of  Paris. — Suttner's 
Ground  Arms. — Swift's  Drapier's  Letters;  Gull- 
iver's Travels. — Swinburne's  Miscellaneous 
Essays;  Minor  Poems. — Symond's  Renaissance 
in  Italy. 

Tacitus'  Works. — Tasso's  Jerusalem  Delivered. — 
Taine's  English  Literature;  The  Ancient 
Regime. — Taylor's  Holy  Living  and  Holy  Dy- 
ing. —  The  Plays  of  Terence.  —  Tennyson's 
Poems,  in  part,  but  especially  In  Memoriam. — 
Thackeray's  Newcomes;  Vanity  Fair;  Henry 
Esmond. — Thucydides'  History  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  War. — Tegner's  Frithiof  Saga. — Thom- 
son's Seasons. — Thoreau's  Walden. — Theocri- 
tus' Idylls. — Toy's  Judaism  and  Christianity. 


100  APPENDIX 

— Tourgee's  A  Fool's  Errand. — Trowbridge's 
Cudjo's  Cave.— Trumbull's  MacFingal.— Tol- 
stoi's My  Religion;  Anna  Karenina;  War  and 
Peace;  Resurrection.  —  Tupper's  Proverbial 
Philosophy. — Turgenieff's  Father  and  Son; 
Dmitri  Rudin;  Virgin  Soil. — TyndalPs  Fara- 
day.— Tylor's  Early  History  of  Mankind. 

Uhland's  Poems. 

Valera's  Pepita  Ximenez. — Virgil's  Poems. — Vol- 
taire's Louis  XIV  and  Louis  XV;  Philosophical 
Dictionary. 

Walton's  Complete  Angler. — Wallace's  Ben  Hur- 
the  Prince  of  India. — Wallace's  Malay  Archi; 
pelago;  Man's  Place  in  Nature. — Ward's  Rob- 
ert Ellsmere.  —  Watson's  Comte,  Mill  and 
Spencer. — Ware's  Zenobia  or  Aurelian. — Weth- 
erell's  Wide,  Wide  World. — Winsor's  Narrative 
and  Critical  History.-Winthrop's  Cecil  Dreeme. 
Whewell's  History  of  the  Industive  Sciences. — 
White's  Natural  History  of  Selborne.— Whit- 
tier's  Poems,  in  part.— Whitman's  Poems,  in 
part.  —Whitney's  Life  and  Growth  of  Language. 
— Wollstonecraft's  Rights  of  Women. — Wood's 
East  Lynne. — Wordsworth's  Poems,  in  part. — 
Wyss,  The  Swiss  Family  Robinson. 

Xenophon's  Anabasis,  first  IV  books;  Memorabilia 
of  Socrates. 

Yonge's  Heir  of  Redcliffe.-Young's  Night  Thoughts. 
Young's  Travels  in  France. 


APPENDIX  101 

ZangwilTs  Children  of  the  Ghetto. — Zola's  Germi- 
nal; La  Debacle. 

This  list  of  books  will  probably  make  fifteen  hun- 
dred duodecimo  volumes  of  the  most  usual  size  and 
type.*  To  dispose  of  the  entire  collection  in  fifty 
years,  would  require  the  reading  of  thirty  volumes  a 
year,  or  about  one  every  fortnight.  With  many  of 
the  volumes  this  will  not  be  a  difficult  task,  as  they 
require  but  little  reflection.  Others  in  order  to  be 
read  with  profit  must  be  read  slowly;  still  others 
very  slowly.  As  few  persons  can  give  the  greater 
part  of  their  time  to  reading  of  a  general  character, 

'*  Few  things  are  commonly  more  deceptive  than  the  size  of  a 
book.  Most  of  the  English  poets,  in  fact  all  of  them  with  very- 
few  exceptions,  are  issued  in  a  single  small  volume  and  also  in 
editions  numbering  as  high  as  a  score  of  volumes.  Yet  there  is 
often  no  more  matter  in  the  large  edition  than  in  the  small. 

The  number  of  authors  in  the  foregoing  list  is  less  than  four 
hundred.  In  this  enumeration,  the  Homeric  Poems,  the  Kalevala, 
the  Bible,  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  and  similar  compilations  are  for 
convenience,  though  inappropriately  .attributed  to  a  single  author. 
In  several  cases  a  single  small  work  of  an  author  appears  on  the 
list.  In  others,  several  works  by  the  same  author  are  included;  in 
still  others  a  single  work  of  an  author  fills  several  volumes.  The 
number  five  hundred  given  on  the  title-page  has  therefore  only  a 
relative  significance,  since  all  the  books  the  title  of  which  are 
given,  would  not  of  necessity  fill  a  hundred  volumes.  They 
might  indeed  be  easily  printed  in  fifty  of  a  moderate  size.  It  is 
believed  that  no  book  is  named  that  may  not  be  had  in  English. 

Paul  Otlet,  the  Secretary  of  the  Brussels  International  Institute, 
estimates  the  whole  number  of  books  printed  to  Jan.  1,  1900,  at 
12,163,000;  the  number  of  periodicals  at  between  fifteen  and 
eighteen  millions. 


102  APPENDIX 

but  must  devote  much  of  it  to  professional  books, 
it  will  be  too  much  for  any  one  person  to  accom- 
plish. It  will  also  be  necessary  to  read  more  or  less 
current  matter,  not  for  culture  but  for  information. 

Moreover,  as  very  few  of  the  volumes  deal  with 
the  plastic  or  pictorial  arts,  those  who  are  interested 
in  these  subjects  must  find  their  reading  outside  of 
the  list.  The  omission  is  intentional,  for  the  rea- 
son that  I  do  not  believe  anyone  can  get  much  pro- 
fit from  the  mere  perusal  of  books,  but  must  know 
something  of  the  arts  themselves.  The  same  state- 
ment will  apply  also  to  music.  The  list  has  of 
course  no  significance  to  the  specialist,  as  he  is 
under  the  necessity  of  reading  a  great  deal  that 
bears  directly  on  the  subject  in  which  he  is 
directly  interested.  The  specialist,  moreover,  can 
dispose  of  a  very  large  number  of  volumes  in  a  very 
short  time,  as  only  once  in  a  while  does  he  come 
across  one  that  adds  materially  to  his  knowledge. 

In  order  to  place  before  my  readers  the  best 
method  of  using  the  list  of  books  like  the  foregoing, 
I  will  put  my  suggestions  in  the  form  of  a  narative. 

In  the  town  of  N there  lived  about  a  score 

of  persons  of  fair  education  who  were  sincerly  de- 
sirous to  promote  their  mental  culture.  Realizing 
the  utter  imposibility  of  even  looking  into  the  cur- 
rent issues  of  the  press  either  in  the  shape  of  books 
or  periodicals,  they  decided  to  confine  themselves 
chiefly  to  the  world's  masterpieces. 


APPENDIX  103 

They  met  about  twenty  times  a  year.  Every 
Fall,  a  committee  selected  for  the  purpose  assigned 
to  each  person  the  books  or  work  he  was  to  purchase, 
the  annual  cost  being  about  five  dollars  per  mem- 
ber. During  the  year  each  member  read  and  re- 
ported to  the  club  the  contents  of  his  allotment, 
three  or  four  reporting  at  each  meeting.  In  the 
case  of  poetry  where  the  form  is  essential,  selections 
were  read  instead  of  the  usual  reports.  In  the  case 
of  small  books  a  report  occupied  less  than  half  an 
hour;  in  the  case  of  larger  ones  much  longer. 
Sometimes  a  report  occupied  part  of  several  even- 
ings. As  each  meeting  lasted  about  three  hours, 
each  member  in  the  course  of  a  year  became  some- 
what familiar  with  the  contents  of  two  or  three 
scores  of  volumes  and  knew  at  first  hand  about  a 
dozen.  The  reports  were  usually  made  in  writing 
or  from  notes  in  order  to  secure  accuracy  and  fore- 
stall rambling  talk.  No  book  was  to  be  brought 
to  the  attention  of  the  club  unless  it  had  stood  the 
test  of  time  or  had  attracted  widespread  attention. 

This  plan  proved  entirely  feasible,  entailed  but 
little  cost  on  each  member,  did  not  interfere  with 
any  one's  business  or  professional  reading,  and 
proved  a  great  saving  of  time.  As  all  the  books 
were  the  property  of  some  member,  he  naturally  felt 
an  interest  in  their  preservation,  and  little  time  was 
wasted  in  looking  for  the  volume  wanted. 

There  was  rarely  any  of  the  desultory  and  aimless 


104  APPENDIX 

discussion  by  which  clubs  having  a  similar  object, 
fritter  away  the  passing  hours.  As  the  purpose  was 
to  study  the  great  writers,  the  members  rarely  felt 
called  upon  to  give  their  own  opinions.  How  long 
the  club  has  been  in  existence  I  do  not  know,  but 
it  is  easy  to  see  that  it  can  be  made  perpetual. 

It  is  an  unfortunate  feature  of  the  management 
of  not  a  few  public  libraries  that  for  the  most  part 
those  books  are  bought  which  the  patrons  want 
rather  than  those  which  they  need.  Generally 
speaking,  the  books  called  for  are  not  those  that 
ought  to  be  called  for.  The  first  purpose  of  a  public 
library,  far  and  away,  is  to  instruct;  but  no  harm 
will  be  done  if  it  also  entertains.  Neither  libraries 
nor  life  ought  to  be  taken  too  seriously. 

Albeit,  if  a  book  or  a  collection  of  books  is  to  edu- 
cate, its  contents  must  always  be  out  of  the  easy 
reach  of  the  reader;  he  should  always  be  compelled 
to  stretch  himself  somewhat  intellectually  to  rise  to 
its  level.  A  library  should  either  take  the  place  of 
a  course  of  study  or  supplement  it.  The  subjects 
and  text-books  of  a  course  of  study  are  always  so 
arranged  that  the  mind  of  the  student  is  kept  in 
tension  in  trying  to  master  what  is  before  him. 
The  mind,  like  the  body,  is  trained  by  vigorous  ex- 
ercise. While  therefore  the  text-books  of  the  fourth 
or  fifth  year  may  be  just  as  difficult  for  the  student 
of  this  grade,  the  text-book  used  by  first  year  stu- 
dents should  appear  easy  to  him  even  when  he 


APPENDIX  105 

takes  them  in  hand  for  the  first  time. 

Nobody  would  be  in  favor  of  delegating  to  a  com- 
pany of  boys  and  girls  the  elaboration  of  a  course 
of  study;  yet  not  a  few  persons  are  willing  to  leave 
the  question  to  a  miscellaneous  public,  as  to  what 
books  should  be  placed  in  a  public  library.  Such 
a  library  is  no  more  a  matter  for  every  body  to 
have  a  hand  in  than  is  the  public  school.  Neither 
is  good  for  much  where  even  a  considerable  minor- 
ity of  the  patrons  must  be  consulted  as  to  the  man- 
agement. 

THE  END. 


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